Dofollow or Nofollow? That is the question!

People who have been in SEO for the early days probably will remember the time when spammers started filling up blog comments with ads that linked to poor quality websites. As a result, Nofollow links were created to avoid this problem.

Nowadays, many people tend to believe that Nofollow links are useless, they do not provide any value and it is just a waste of time to have some Nofollow links pointing to your website. But is this statement true? 

First of all, let’s understand what are Nofollow and Dofollow links and what is the difference between them. Nofollow links tell search engines to ignore them and not include them in PageRank. It is possible to check whether the link is Nofollow or Dofollow by right-clicking on your browser and selecting “View page source”. By looking at the HTML of the page you can see if there is rel=”nofollow” attribute or not. If yes, then the link is Nofollow and does not impact search engine rankings. Here are some examples which most often tend to be Nofollow links:

• Blog comments

• Social media, for instance, links in Facebook or Twitter posts

• Links in forum posts 

• Links in press releases

• Links in other forms of user-generated content

• Some popular websites like Quora, YouTube, Wikipedia, Reddit, Twitch, Medium

• Paid links

Meanwhile, Dofollow links help your website in the process of search engine rankings since search engines count these links in their algorithm. So, in fact, Nofollow links do not provide any value in PageRank. But are they really useless?

The statement that Nofollow links do not have any direct impact on page rankings is true. however,  what about indirect impacts. Just have a look at the possible benefits that Nofollow links can give your website.

• More TRAFFIC. Although Nofollow links do not have any impact on page ranking they simply bring traffic to your website. More people visit it and you increase your brand awareness and authority among visitors.

• Nofollow=Dofollow. Yes, yes you read right. The point is that Nofollow links can bring you Dofollow links. For instance, an individual like a blogger can visit your website via Nofollow link, then he/she may like your content as much to mention you in his/her blog. So, with the Nofollow link, you’ve just earned a Dofollow link with its possible traffic and other positive impacts. 

Nofollow links make your link profile look natural.

Your website’s link profile is very important in how search engines look at your reputation. So, having a natural profile has a positive correlation with the Google algorithm in the process of PageRank. Thus, having links that were not asked for, but instead were organically given based on the content value (this can also comment, social media posts, forums, etc.) are also essential. Thus, of course, may and will include Nofollow links. 

In conclusion, to the question Dofollow or Nofollow we can definitely say, we choose both of them!