Link attributes are one of those topics in SEO that seem simple on the surface but carry real consequences when applied incorrectly. Understanding when to use nofollow links, and when not to, is an important part of managing a healthy, well-structured website. 

This guide walks through the mechanics, the use cases, and the situations where getting it wrong could hurt your SEO.

What Is a Nofollow Link?

A nofollow link is a hyperlink that includes the rel="nofollow" attribute in its HTML. This attribute is a signal to search engines that the linking page does not want to pass authority (sometimes called "link juice" or PageRank) to the destination page.

A standard dofollow link looks like this: <a href="https://example.com">Example</a>

A nofollow link looks like this: <a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Example</a>

The nofollow attribute was introduced by Google in 2005 as a way to help webmasters manage links they could not editorially vouch for, most notably in comment sections and user-generated content. Since then, its use has expanded to several different scenarios, and Google's handling of it has evolved.

According to Google's own link scheme guidance, the nofollow attribute (along with its more specific relatives, rel="ugc" and rel="sponsored") is the recommended way to handle links that fall outside the scope of editorial endorsement.

How Google Actually Treats Nofollow Links

It's worth understanding Google's current stance on nofollow before exploring when to use it. In 2019, Google updated its nofollow policy and announced that it would treat nofollow as a hint rather than a directive when it came to crawling and indexing. 

This means Google may still crawl a nofollow link and may still choose to index the destination page, but it will generally not pass PageRank through a nofollow link.

The practical implication is that nofollow links do not typically contribute to a page's search ranking authority. They may still drive referral traffic. They may still be crawled. But they don't carry the same SEO weight as editorially given dofollow links.

This distinction matters because nofollow links are still worth having in many contexts. A nofollow link from a high-traffic publication will still send real visitors to your site. It just won't strengthen your domain authority the way a dofollow link from the same source would.

When You Should Use Nofollow Links

Paid or Sponsored Links

This is the most clear-cut case. If you have paid for a link to appear on another website, or if you're the publisher being paid to include a link, that link must be marked as sponsored. Google's preferred attribute for this is rel="sponsored", though rel="nofollow" is also accepted.

Failing to disclose paid links by using the appropriate attribute is considered a violation of Google's link scheme policies and can result in a manual penalty. This applies to any situation where there is an exchange of money, products, or services in return for a link: sponsored blog posts, paid features, affiliate links, and similar arrangements.

If your website participates in an affiliate programme, every affiliate link should carry the nofollow or sponsored attribute. Affiliate links are, by their nature, commercial relationships rather than editorial endorsements.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any content that visitors to your website can add without your direct editorial involvement. This typically includes blog comments, forum posts, community board contributions, and product reviews.

When users can add their own links in these contexts, you have no way to verify the quality or relevance of those links. A spammer might add dozens of links to dubious sites in your comment section. A malicious user might insert links designed to harm users or manipulate search results.

Google introduced the rel="ugc" attribute specifically for this use case, but rel="nofollow" remains acceptable. Applying nofollow (or ugc) to all links within user-generated areas of your site protects your domain from being inadvertently associated with low-quality or harmful external sites.

Most content management systems, including WordPress, automatically apply nofollow to links in comment sections by default. If you're running a custom-built platform with user-generated content, implementing this manually is an important step.

Untrusted or Unverified Content

Even outside the UGC context, there are situations where you want to link to a page for informational reasons but cannot personally vouch for its quality or legitimacy. In these cases, nofollow is the appropriate choice.

For example, if you are writing an article that discusses a claim made by a specific source, and you want to reference that source, but you have doubts about its overall quality or credibility, a nofollow link allows you to acknowledge the source without endorsing it.

Login Pages and Internal Administrative Pages

If your website has a login page, a cart page, a checkout flow, or any internal administrative page that you don't want search engines to crawl or index, nofollow on internal links pointing to those pages provides an additional signal alongside your robots.txt and meta robots settings.

This is a less critical use case because robots.txt and the noindex meta tag are more direct mechanisms for controlling crawler access, but nofollow on links to these pages adds a belt-and-braces approach.

Links in Widgets, Embeds, and Templates

If you create a widget, template, or embed that other sites can use, and that widget includes a link back to your website, that link should be nofollow or sponsored. Links that are part of a distributed template or widget are not editorially earned by the linking site, so they should not pass PageRank.

This is an area where many businesses inadvertently violate Google's link scheme guidelines. A footer link saying "Built by [Your Agency]" that appears across hundreds of client sites without the appropriate attribute is the kind of pattern Google may identify and discount.

When You Should Not Use Nofollow

Understanding when to use nofollow links requires equal clarity about when not to use them.

Editorial links within your own content should almost always be dofollow. When you link to another page from within a well-researched, thoughtfully written article because that page is genuinely useful and relevant, that is an editorial link. Applying nofollow to it unnecessarily deprives the destination page of the authority your editorial judgement carries.

Some webmasters have historically used nofollow on internal links as a form of "PageRank sculpting," attempting to direct authority toward specific pages by nofollowing others. Google has indicated that this approach is no longer effective since their 2019 update, and it can create unnecessary complexity in your internal linking structure.

Links to credible external resources in your content should generally be dofollow. If you're citing a research study from a university, statistics from a government body, or a definition from a reputable authority, applying nofollow sends a somewhat contradictory message. 

Your content is saying the source is credible enough to reference, but your link attribute is saying the opposite. Dofollow links to genuinely authoritative external sources are standard practice and do not harm your site.

The Difference Between Nofollow, Sponsored, and UGC

Since Google introduced the additional link attributes in 2019, there are now three options that serve the nofollow function in different contexts:

rel="nofollow" remains the catch-all for links you don't want to endorse, particularly in cases that don't fall neatly into the other two categories.

rel="sponsored" is specifically for paid or commercially motivated links. Google has indicated this helps them understand the nature of the relationship.

rel="ugc" is specifically for user-generated content links, helping Google identify that the link was added by a third party rather than an editor.

In practice, using the more specific attributes where appropriate is the cleaner approach, but nofollow continues to work in all three contexts and remains widely used.

Nofollow Links and Your Backlink Profile

From the perspective of building your own site's authority, it's worth understanding that a backlink profile made up entirely of nofollow links is significantly less valuable than one with a healthy mix of dofollow editorial links.

For businesses investing in link building as part of their SEO strategy, the goal is to earn editorial dofollow links from relevant, authoritative sources. These carry real authority transfer. The nofollow links that might come from press mentions, social media, or forum contributions still have value as referral traffic sources and brand visibility signals, but they don't strengthen domain authority in the same way.

This is why a strong digital PR and link building strategy focuses on earning genuine editorial coverage that results in dofollow links, rather than pursuing any link at any attribute setting indiscriminately.

Auditing Your Nofollow Usage

Reviewing how nofollow attributes are being used across your site is a useful part of a broader SEO audit. Common issues to look for include:

Incorrectly applied nofollow to internal links that should be passing authority. Missing nofollow attributes on paid or sponsored external links. User-generated content sections where links don't have appropriate attributes. Widget or template links that are distributing dofollow links they shouldn't be.

Most SEO crawling tools, including Screaming Frog, Ahrefs, and Semrush, allow you to audit link attributes across your site and identify inconsistencies. Making these corrections is a technical housekeeping task that ensures your link management aligns with Google's guidelines.

A Note on Outbound Link Quality Generally

Beyond the nofollow/dofollow distinction, the quality of pages you link to matters for your own SEO. Google's documentation has consistently emphasised that sites linking to spammy, low-quality, or harmful content can see their own quality assessments affected.

Regularly reviewing the external links in your content, checking that the destinations are still live, still relevant, and still credible, is good practice for both SEO and user experience.

For a clear understanding of how nofollow attributes fit into your broader link strategy and technical SEO health,get in touch with the team at Notorio. We can help you audit your current approach and build a link management strategy that supports your long-term organic growth.