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Nofollow link was first established in 2005 as a response to blog spam comments.
As they do with, well, everything, SEO specialists used to attempt to influence Google’s PageRank on their clients’ websites.
Nofollow essentially instructs Google (or any other search engine that recognizes this attribute) to disavow the target link.
It used to be applied to the page-level meta tag (meta name=”robots” content=”nofollow” />), but now it’s far more typical to see it applied to each individual link.
How Does “Nofollow links” Work?
A rel attribute with the value “nofollow link” is used.
The connection between the page where the link resides and the page it refers to is described by the rel property.
An example of a standard nofollowed link is shown below:
I utilize a product of this kind, a href=”https://www.example.com/product” rel=”nofollow”>.
The current Google Webmaster Guidelines specify that:
Links tagged with certain rel properties won’t often be followed, according to Google.
Nofollowing a link, however, does not ensure that Google won’t locate the target website since such targets may still be reached through other methods (such as a followed link from another page).
Four years later, in 2009, Matt Cutts, a former Google employee, said that employing nofollow to manipulate PageRank would no longer be effective.
In the past, PageRank was distributed across the quantity of outbound followed links.
As a result of this modification, it would now be distributed across all of the links, nofollowed or not.
Nofollow Turns into a Hint
In March 2020, Google said that they now consider the nofollow feature to be more of a suggestion than a command.
Although many SEO experts had a hunch that this was the case, here was proof.
rel=”sponsored”
This characteristic is used to identify links or material that has been paid for, such as:
I received compensation for writing about this kind of product at a href=”https://www.example.com/product” rel=”sponsored nofollow”. (Post sponsored by)
rel=“ugc”
User-generated material, such as forum posts or blog comments, are identified by this characteristic, as in the following examples:
I’ve utilized products of this kind, a href=”https://www.example.com/product” rel=”ugc nofollow”>. (Forum or comment)
The nofollow property, which I have added in the sample above, may be used with any of the two new attributes.
Use nofollow to warn Google that you aren’t endorsing your links even if they don’t fit into either of the two new categories.
When Is It Time To Use NoFollow?
Let’s look at what Google says about your outbound links’ qualification:
Nofollow is now intended to be used when the other two rel properties (sponsored and UGC) aren’t applicable and you don’t want the link to transmit PageRank. Previously, nofollow was used as a general catch-all for links that you didn’t want to send PageRank.
Link Plans
The current list of what makes a link scheme is summarized as follows:
Purchasing or offering the following links to trick PageRank: Included are links where you paid the webmaster to put the link, links where you provided the webmaster a product so they could write about it, and links where you traded service for a link.
- link exchanges on a large scale.
- articles or guest posts with keyword-rich anchors that are published widely.
- Links that are automatically produced by different services.
- Links that are provided because the provider of a product or service you are using needs them.
- Text advertising that are PageRank-compliant.
- released with optimized anchor text in the press.
- jot down websites.
- inferior directories.
- Widgets.
- links in the template’s footers.
- remarks in forums.
