What does a nofollow link actually mean?
We’ve already touched on this briefly when discussing Robots.txt, but let’s dig a little deeper.
A nofollow link is a hyperlink that tells search engines (like Google) not to pass any value to the linked page—it simply serves as a reference.
The “value” being referred to here is what’s commonly known as pagerank—essentially a measure of authority that can be transferred to the linked page.
A nofollow link contains the attribute rel=”nofollow” in the HTML code.
Here’s what it might look like:
< a href=”www.mickyweis.dk” rel=”nofollow” >
A regular (dofollow) link would look like this:
< a href=”www.mickyweis.dk” >
So the only difference is that the nofollow tag tells search engines not to pass any SEO value, but simply to acknowledge the link as a reference.
In contrast, a dofollow link signals to search engines that they should pass on value.
There’s no need to explicitly add a tag for this, since dofollow is the default for most websites.
Are nofollow links bad?
Not at all.
A nofollow link can still drive traffic to your site.
And when working with link building, it’s actually a good idea to aim for a natural-looking backlink profile.
Since most of your backlinks will typically be dofollow, mixing in some nofollow links adds healthy variation.
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