Dofollow vs nofollow links: What’s the difference?

When talking about search engine optimisation (SEO), some of the most often-used terminology which you’ll come across is the following:

• Noindex,
• Doindex,
• Nofollow,
• Dofollow, in addition to
• Meta robots

Every single one of these terms holds equal weight in the SEO rulebook. In this piece, we’ll be discussing nofollow as well as follow links. In addition, we’ll be looking at what the difference is between these two is as well as how to use these types of links in your SEO efforts.

What is a ‘dofollow’ link?

The term ‘dofollow links’ refers to HTML attributes that are made us of to permit search bots to follow the links. If a webmaster is creating a link to your website and uses a dofollow link, the bots (as well as people) are able to follow you. Dofollow links pass on link juice and really promote your website in allowing them to gain a higher Page Rank.

Google notices Dofollow links. When they take note of these, they figure out how many users are linking to your page to get a decent idea of how relevant the page is. Thus, the more dofollow links which you have, the increased number of points you will receive.

It is extremely important not just to get dofollow link from anywhere but rather to obtain a follow link from a trustworthy website such as the New York Times or CNN.

What exactly is a ‘nofollow’ link?

A nofollow link is one which does not count in the page’s favour. Put another way, this link does not boost PageRank. In addition, it does not assist with where a page is ranked in the SERPs.

A nofollow link is created using the nofollow link HTML tag. This tag is similar to this:

<a href=”http://www.website.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Link Text</a>

In layman’s terms, the nofollow tag is, at the end of the day, a notice for search engines which says “don’t count this”.  Nofollow links are very often made use of in blog or forum comments in order to try and take away the motivation for automatic link spammers to put their links there.

How to ascertain if a link is dofollow/nofollow

The easiest way to see if a link is a nofollow or a dofollow link is to view the HTML code of a website page as well as check out the “<a href” HTML tag. If you can see the attribute “rel=”nofollow” between the starting <a> and the closing </a>, then it means that the link is nofollow.

As we said further up in this article, the natural dofollow type of links is utilised by Google to evaluate PageRank. More links result in more link juice. The increased amount of link juice that your website has, the higher your website pages will rank. Unfortunately, many have employed black hat SEO techniques and have used link building techniques to increase the rank of a particular page artificially.

The nofollow link tag has a lot of benefits for the online world. WordPress automatically assigns the nofollow link attribute to all links which are submitted by users. Wikipedia does the same thing in its reference section.

Here’s a quick guide about when to use nofollow links:

• Paid links,
• Comments,
• Forums, as well as
• Anything the involves what Google calls “untrusted content”.

Some webmaster may deactivate the nofollow attribute as a reward for people who comment on blogs who are making valuable contributions to the blogging community or online discussion. Remember that, ultimately, on your site, you need a healthy balance of dofollow as well as nofollow backlinks to achieve the perfect link profile. Dofollow links may be more beneficial for SEO; however both types of links deserve a place in your online marketing strategy.

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