Dofollow vs Nofollow Links: What's the Difference for SEO?

What is the Difference Between Dofollow and Nofollow Links?

A dofollow link is a standard hyperlink with no special attribute. It lets search engines follow the link and count it as a vote for the destination page. A nofollow link carries the attribute rel="nofollow", which asks search engines not to pass ranking credit through it.

"Dofollow" is not an actual HTML attribute: any link without nofollow (or a similar attribute) is a dofollow link by default.

The rel Attributes: nofollow, sponsored and ugc

Since 2019, Google supports three attributes to qualify links:

• rel="nofollow": links you do not want to vouch for.
• rel="sponsored": paid links, ads and affiliate links.
• rel="ugc": links in user-generated content, like comments and forum posts.

Google treats these attributes as hints rather than strict instructions, so it may still use some of these links for crawling or understanding.

Why It Matters for SEO

• External links: use sponsored or nofollow for paid and affiliate links to follow search engine guidelines. Editorial links to useful sources can stay dofollow.
• Internal links: links between your own pages should almost always be dofollow. Adding nofollow to internal links stops link equity from flowing to your own pages and can leave pages under-linked.
• Crawling: nofollow does not hide a page. If you do not want a page indexed, use a noindex meta tag instead.

When to Use Nofollow

• Sponsored placements and affiliate links (prefer sponsored).
• Comments, reviews and forum posts written by users (prefer ugc).
• Links to pages you cannot vouch for.

Login pages, sign-up flows or external app links are sometimes marked nofollow too. That is acceptable, but it has little SEO effect.

How to Check Your Links

Inspect the HTML of a page (right click, "Inspect") and look for rel="nofollow" on <a> tags, or use a crawler that reports link attributes. During an internal link audit, list internal links marked nofollow and remove the attribute unless there is a clear reason to keep it.

Dofollow and Nofollow on Webflow, WordPress and Wix

• Webflow: links are dofollow by default. Add rel="nofollow" through a custom attribute on the link element.
• WordPress: the link editor and SEO plugins let you mark a link as nofollow or sponsored.
• Wix: the link panel includes an option to add nofollow to a link.

Common Mistakes

• Marking internal links as nofollow to "sculpt" PageRank, a technique that no longer works.
• Using nofollow to keep a page out of search results instead of noindex.
• Forgetting to mark paid or affiliate links.

How LinkerFlow Helps

LinkerFlow creates standard dofollow internal links inside your content, so authority flows between related pages. Every suggestion is reviewed by you before publishing on Webflow, WordPress or Wix.