Are Nofollow Links Worth Getting? Yes! Here’s Why…

Nofollow links have long been overlooked and undervalued by marketers. Granted, they might not give your search rankings the same leg-up as a follow backlink. But they can still boost awareness of your brand and drive high-quality traffic to your site, and reassure Google that your site is credible.

Do follow links vs nofollow

Most of us understand the importance of linkbuilding in digital PR. In a nutshell: you create content so useful that other relevant sites want to link to it. Google takes this as a sign of your credibility, and is more likely to reward you with a higher ranking. 

Of course, it gets far more complicated than that. Not least because, in the eyes of the algorithms, not all backlinks carry the same weight.

First, there are regular backlinks – the ‘do follows’. These are highly sought-after because, as well as driving traffic and building brand awareness, they can have a direct impact on your website’s ranking in the search engine results pages (SERPs). If you want to get into a coveted top-three spot, it’s not enough to have great on-page content or technical performance. You need the validation of quality backlinks, too. Google wants to see that you’re recognised as a trusted source of information in your industry.

Then there are nofollow links. The average site user wouldn’t notice the difference. They’d click on the hyperlink and be taken to your site – which is great for user experiences and web traffic. 

But these links have a rel=”nofollow” tag in the HTML telling Google not to pass page rank signals to increase your site’s authority – so no link equity passed on from the referring domain. It’s worth noting that, since buying backlinks goes against Google Webmaster Guidelines, you can only really purchase nofollow links (and low-quality ones at that). It’s something we’d strongly discourage – see our article Should You Ever Pay For Backlinks? to read why.

The role of nofollow links

So what’s the point of nofollow links? You might assume they don’t provide any SEO benefits, but we now know that’s not true.

Nofollow was originally introduced by Google in 2005 as a way to combat comment spam, and quickly became a recommended method for flagging advertising-related or sponsored links. Google disregarded them completely, giving them no bearing on a website’s authority.

That changed with the 2020 algorithm update. Google now treats nofollow links – along with the additional tags rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc” (for user-generated content) – as ‘hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search’. 

While it’s unlikely that nofollow links would carry the same weight as a do follow, experts agree that high-quality nofollow links can still contribute to your ranking. There are some further ways they may indirectly impact your SEO strategy, too.

Link profile diversity

While do follow links are the ones everyone wants, it’s actually preferable to have a diverse, more organic profile, with a more-or-less equal number of do follows and nofollows.

Since some websites, particularly news sites, use nofollow links automatically, a profile made up entirely of dofollow links would just look a bit… off. Google might read it as a sign of spammy or underhand tactics, such as purchasing backlinks. It may even penalise your site, making it significantly harder for you to rank well.

Traffic

Increased traffic is probably the most obvious benefit of nofollow links. While they may not pass the same authority to your website, people still click on them.

Links from relevant, respected sources – those with a lot of clout in your industry – will naturally result in high-quality referral traffic. That is, visitors who are more likely to engage with your content.

Brand awareness

Similarly, being featured across the web is a great way to build awareness of your brand. 

Many high-authority sites like the BBC, New York Times or Forbes are likely to use nofollow links automatically. The same goes for popular sites such as Wikipedia, Quora and Reddit, which feature a lot of user-generated content. Even if a link from the BBC doesn’t equate to an endorsement as far as the search engines are concerned, its value is undeniable. And if the anchor text mentions your brand by name? Even better.

The importance of nofollows

Nofollow links are valuable, not just because they help increase online presence, but also because they form part of a normal, balanced backlink profile. While we don’t know the specifics of Googles ‘hint model’, we do know that nofollow links have some bearing on page ranking – just as they do on people’s perceptions and awareness of your brand.

To find out how our digital PR experts can help build your link profile, get in touch.