Glossary
Nofollow link
A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", asking search engines not to pass ranking credit to the page it links to. It can still send real visitors.
Also called
rel="nofollow"Sites add nofollow to links they don't want to vouch for — links in comments, links to sites they haven't checked, or links they were paid for. Google treats nofollow as a hint rather than a rule, but in practice a nofollow link passes little or no ranking signal.
A nofollow link is still worth having: people click it, and a mix of followed and nofollow links is what a natural backlink profile looks like.
Related terms
- Dofollow linkA dofollow link is an ordinary link without a nofollow, sponsored or ugc rel value, so search engines may count it as a vote for the page it points to.
- Sponsored linkA sponsored link is a paid or affiliate link marked rel="sponsored", the way Google asks sites to label links that were bought.
- UGC linkA UGC link is a link in user-generated content — a comment, a forum post, a profile — marked rel="ugc" so search engines know the site didn't choose it.
- BacklinkA backlink is a link from another website to yours. Search engines treat backlinks from relevant, trusted sites as a sign your site is worth ranking.
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