Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
What's the difference between follow and nofollow links?
-
I understand this may be a really dumb question and from my understanding there is a piece of code in some url's that tell search engines not to follow that link. I am interested in finding out what the purpose of nofollow links are and how they apply to search rankings.
Thanks for the help
-
Thanks for the insights.
It really helps
-
Thanks Tait,
That is awesome information and thanks for responding so thoroughly!
-
Spiders from search engiines "crawl" the web by following a link from one page to another. Using a rel=nofollow HTML attribute on a link tells the search engine not to follw the link and crawl the page that the link points to.
Search engine rankings by sites like Google are based on the premise that the best content has the most links to it (this is a super over-simplification, I know). "nofollow" links aren't counted by Google when they assign value to the page being linked to.
Most often sites use "nofollow" to block links from user generated content that might be used to manipulate search engines. An example of this might be a blog that nofollows all the links in it's comments so that spammers don't show up and flood the comment section with links to sites they'd like to rank higher in google.
-
Basically, a link with rel="nofollow" will not pass link juice to that page.
The nofollow can be used to link to outside content without passing link juice, and is widely used in many sites with user generated content and profiles to prevent link spamming.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
I'm stuck by internal linking.
What structure should a football website follow? Silo or Topic Cluster?
Link Building | | gogoanimetp
I need advice on my website. My website: https://tructiepbongda.site
I hope there are answers!
Thanks0 -
I want to know about the Impact of Do-follow backlinks and No-follow backlinks for increasing DA.
Have Do-follow backlinks and No-Follow backlinks same value to increase Domain Authority in Moz? Recently, I have created 290 profile backlinks which was do-follow. But from yesterday I have seen all backlinks are no-follow now according to the decision of sites' owners. My site's DA has already increased up to 35. Will this DA fall gradually from now? Apart from it, if I have created same backlinks for my another site; will my DA be 35? Please try to clarify it. My site is: Homeworkpaper.net Thanks. Waiting for your valuable answer.
Link Building | | darrellpc1 -
Value of Links? What is each link worth?
Morning Everyone, I just had this thought and wondered what everyone's opinions were in terms of link value in monetary terms. We'll assume for the purposes of this that the links come from contextually relevant sites and that the sites in question have got the Moz DA from being high quality and have a good quality incoming link profile. Its a bit of a theoretical question, but i guess imagine if the only way you could get links was to pay for them, what would they be worth to you. This is link value for SEO purposes, they will have in addition value from traffic from good sites, that no doubt varies wildly depending on topic. I assume everyone also agrees on: The first link from a domain is the most valuable High DA sites are worth more than low ones. So could anyone who has an opinion on the link value suggest a monetary value for links. Its really just using a monetary amount to see how best to target my time. Here is my example of what might be expected, but I am hoping people with more knowledge will perhaps correct it. DA Rating First Link 2nd-5th Link 5th-10th Link 10Plus Links 5 $5 $2 $1 $0 15 $7 $3 $2 $1 25 $25 $10 $5 $2 35 $45 $20 $7 $3 45 $65 $30 $11 $4 55 $95 $45 $19 $5 65 $200 $100 $45 $6 75 $350 $120 $65 $9 85 $700 $240 $95 $15 95 $1100 $450 $200 $30
Link Building | | wellandpower1 -
How do we optimise links from a parent company to a subsidiary on different domains
So we are the agent for an industrial company. They don't have a great website (well its pretty but doesn't rank) and have 5 product pages with a variety of products on each. We've taken those products and turned them into 50 pages with good on page optimisation. Now they've just agreed to give us a link on each page and I'm trying to figure out what the best text and link will be. As far as I can see there are three options Visit our agent for X region - sending to the home page If you are from X region you can request a sample of product group from our agent - sending to home page and product category page on our site If you are looking for X, Y, Z or P, Q, R in this region contact our agent there. - sending to home page and individual product pages The aim of this is to boost my page authority as 98% of the top 10 in SERPS have pages with zero authority and rely on the on page optimization and DA. Is this the best approach or are there other better ways of approaching the problem. It's worth noting that there is a total separation of control and ownership of the websites. I'm also starting to work with them to improve their on page optimisation and get links from their parent company to increase link juice
Link Building | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
Links from PRWeb press release violate Google's quality guidelines?
My site has had a manual action performed on it by Google indicating that I have inbound links that fall outside of their quality guidelines. I did my own research, found what I thought was the issue, had the links removed and requested reconsideration. Google's response surprised me in that they highlighted two specific pages with links that were the direct result of valid press releases and a publisher picking up our release off a wire service. Has anyone else seen this occur? Anyone had a case successfully reconsidered? I realize that I don't need to do anything at all as the manual action is in effect and will stay that way, discounting those links, but I would rather a) not have any manual action against my site and b) know for the future so this doesn't happen again. Also, is this applicable for guest blog posts, which effectively create the same type of backlinks? Thanks
Link Building | | barberm1 -
Quick Wins and 'Low Hanging Fruit' - how do I identify them?
Hello, I have fairly recently taken up a position as an in-house SEO, having previously had my own (not terribly successful) ecommerce venture, so my SEO experience is at beginner level. I have read a LOT in coming up with a strategy (Laura Lippay's 8 Step Strategy, amongst so much more on here, has been epic), and have come up with something fairly comprehensive. However, it's taken me months! This is partyly due to other non-SEO responsibilities, and partly due to finding my way around all the tools & resources available, how everything fits together and what should be prioritised over what. This is massively inefficient for future projects, or indeed if I ever got a job in agency, and so I need to get quicker/more productive. I keep reading about identifying and capitalising on 'low hanging fruit' - how does one go about this? Details would be hugely appreciated - starting from the bottom up, i.e. keyword research, competitive & backlink analysis, link building etc. For the record, I have zero coding capabilities (something I plan to rectify one day soon) and so my strategy revolves primarily around content and outreach, rather changing site architecture. In any case, our website seems well put together, since new content is indexed very quickly. Thanks so much in advance, Ali (UK)
Link Building | | AliClinks0 -
Has anyone seen positive results from using Submiteaze to submit to directories? I know an SEM agency that uses it for clients' link building campaigns, but I don't know if it is worth buying. Are there better alternatives?
I would like to start a link building initiative at my company for a new website, and would like to know if the value of the links built using Submiteaze would be worth the money.
Link Building | | pbhatt0 -
How does Google interpret articles or prepositions in languages where it's attached to the (key)word?
Hi, All! This is for any foreign language SEOs where articles or prepostitions such as "the" "to" "in" or anything else are actually part of the word they are modifying and not a separate word, as in English: How does Google understand those words on-page and in anchor text? If you want to optimize for the word "house", and your content/anchor text says "the house" or "in the house" (again, all one word) - what does Google count that as? Does it count toward "house"? Does it count toward "in the house" only? Does it count toward "house" but not as much as if you had just put "house"? I end up sometimes writing slightly grammatically-off content because I want to optimize for the keyphrase - but is that necessary? Obviously different languages might be different, but you can probably project a little from one to the others. Thanks in advance!
Link Building | | debi_zyx0