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There are several important technical aspects to web development that are not visible to users but play a key role in the context of search engines. Links, by default, convey what's called "link juice" to help search engines navigate the page, but this changes if you use the nofollow attribute in the link code.
How does a nofollow link affect SEO and when should it be used? In this material we will talk about the meaning of dofollow and nofollow links, other rel attributes and how to properly build a link profile taking these factors into account.
A dofollow link is a regular hyperlink that does not have additional attributes such as nofollow, and transfers its “link juice” to the pages it leads to. This means that search engines can use such links to evaluate the authority of web pages and their position in search results.
To understand how this looks in the page code, let's look at the examples:
What's happening in the code:
As you can see, in the case of a dofollow link, the rel attribute is missing. This means that search engines can follow the link and take it into account when ranking pages. When a link has no restrictions, it helps increase the authority of a web page.
One of the main factors for search engines is the backlinks that pages receive. High-quality backlinks are an important criterion for position in search results. The more external links pointing to a site, the higher its authority.
Many factors influence the value of backlinks, such as:
Now let's move on to issues related to nofollow links and their impact on SEO.
A nofollow link is used when webmasters do not want to transfer link juice to the page to which the link leads. It signals search engines to disregard the authority of the resource being linked to. However, over the years, search engines have been treating nofollow as a recommendation rather than a strict guideline.
In 2005, Google introduced the nofollow attribute in response to the problem of spammy links in comments. At first it was a strict instruction not to follow a link, but last year Google updated its approach so that nofollow now serves as a hint for search engines, which may still consider such links when ranking.
Along with nofollow, other attributes such as sponsored and ugc were introduced for sponsored and user-generated links. These attributes can be used in combination with nofollow:
Although the rel attribute is invisible to users, there are several ways to check whether a link is nofollowing:
Although dofollow links are considered more valuable in SEO, nofollow links also have significant benefits. They can drive traffic to your site, improve brand awareness, and create a more natural link profile. Also, if the sites hosting such links are reputable, they can have a positive impact on the overall visibility of the resource in search.
Research shows that a large number of diverse backlinks is generally more important for high search rankings than dofollow links alone. That is, even if a link is marked as nofollow, it can affect rankings, especially if it comes from reputable sources.
Note: nofollow links can only harm a site if they come from unreliable or spam sites. To protect your site, it is important to regularly monitor your backlinks and remove harmful ones if necessary.
The optimal ratio of dofollow to nofollow links varies, but it is generally believed that on quality sites, about 25% of links are nofollow and 75% are dofollow. It is important that the site receives links from different authoritative domains relevant to its topic.
If you don't want to endorse the pages you link to and don't want to confirm their authority, use nofollow. For links left by users, it is better to use the ugc attribute, and for affiliate and paid ones - sponsored. This will help ensure that such links are labeled correctly.
For internal links, it makes no sense to use the nofollow attribute. This deprives you of the ability to transfer link juice between important pages on your site. If you need to exclude pages from indexing, it is better to use the noindex meta tag or configure it through robots.txt.
To add the nofollow attribute, you can manually edit the link code by adding rel="nofollow". There are also CMS plugins like Yoast SEO that allow you to automatically add nofollow to external links.
Nofollow links can be useful, although they do not directly transfer link juice. However, they help build a natural link profile, increase traffic, and help expand your dofollow link opportunities. It is important to maintain a balance between dofollow and nofollow links and use rel attributes depending on the type of link.
If you have questions or need help with optimization, you can contact the SEO studio "SEO COMPUTER" for any question by writing to info@seo.computer.
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