Do you know that NoFollow was a feature that was introduced back in the year 2005 and came about as a reaction to blog spam content? It is up to you if you want to believe it or not but SEO professionals used to try and manipulate Google page rank on their site. Yes, you are listening correctly the professionals tried to manipulate well everything. NoFollow is a feature that tells Google to not vouch for the target link. Whereas it was previously used in all the page level meta tags. Hence, it was very common to see it used on a per-link basis now.
What does Google mean by NoFollow?
Doe this question strikes your mind? Don’t worry, we are here to clear it out. NoFollow is a rel attribute <rel=” nofollow”>. This is something that tells you down the relationship between the page where the link is and the page where the link points out. Let’s tell you about this through an example.
Someone uses <a href=” https://www.example.com/product” rel=” nofollow”>this</a> type of product. Further, Google master says that the rel attributes are not followed at present. However, the targets can be found by another name but nofollowing a link is not a guarantee that Google won’t find that page. In 2009, Matt Cutts, formerly of Google, announced I was trying to sculpt PageRank using nofollow but it didn’t work. This is because the page link got divided into a number of outbound followed links.
NoFollow becomes a Hint.
In the year 2020, March was the month when Google announced that they now see the Nofollow attribute but as a hint only not a directive. So, there is nothing like to be happy. Many professionals of SEO thought that it was a case but it was a confirmation. Furthermore, Google announced that it added two more attributes or identifying the intent of links. Let’s read about them.
- rel=” sponsored”
This is an attribute that is basically used to identify paid contents and links.
- rel= “ugc”
This is an attribute used to identify all the user-generated content like forum posts or blog comments. Therefore, both of these attributes can easily be used with the Nofollow attribute. If the links don’t fall in any of the new categories then you want to tell Google that you aren’t vouching for them and then use NoFollow.
When should one use NoFollow?
Previously NoFollow used a general catchall for links. But from now onwards it is supposed to be used when the other two rel attributes are not relevant and you don’t want the link to pass PageRank.
What is considered to be a paid link?
Here is everything that you should know about the paid link. There are so many people around who are having conflicting options about what is a paid link and whatnot. However, Google describes paid links to all the below mentioned links. Have a look to know.
- Exchanging money for links.
- Exchanging goods and services for links.
- Posts that contain links.
- Product in exchange for writing etc.
These are paid links in eyes of Google.
Link Schemes.
Here is something that will help you to know what constitutes a link scheme.
- All the text ads that pass page rank.
- Mass-scale link exchanges.
- Mass-scale guest posts and articles that use keyword-rich anchors.
- Press-releases with anchor text, bookmark site, low-quality directories, widgets, forum comments, and many more.
When you should not use NoFollow?
If you are giving someone a link because you want someone to then think it’s a good resource. And you have not given anything or paid for it if you don’t need to nofollow it. If you don’t see that then it is considered a link that is designed to manipulate PageRank and this is the only place where you don’t need to use NoFollow.
What about Do-Follow?
There is nothing like Do Follow. If a link isn’t NoFollowed, then it will automatically be followed.
What value does a NoFollowed link bring?
A NoFollowed link may not help you rank higher. These are the links that are part of a natural link profile and a site with no NoFollowed links looks odd. One of the best things about these links is that they have good traffic can send you much more traffic than many followed links.
Hence, this is all that should be known by you regarding this. If you are interested in knowing something more or want to clear any query then you should go and comment in the comments section.
