Nofollow Links: When to Use Them and Do They Help

Nofollow links are links marked with rel="nofollow", which tells search engines you do not vouch for the destination and would rather they not crawl it from your page. Since Google’s 2019 change, nofollow is a hint, not a command, and it sits alongside two more specific values: rel="sponsored" for paid links and rel="ugc" for user-generated content. Use them to label links honestly, not to hoard ranking value.

This guide is for site owners, editors and marketers who publish links or ask for them. It covers how the hint model works, which value to use when, whether they still help you, where not to use nofollow, and how to check any link in seconds.

On this page

• What are nofollow links?
• How Google’s 2019 hint change works
• Nofollow, sponsored or ugc: which to use
• Do nofollow links help SEO?
• When should you not use nofollow?
• How to check if a link is nofollow
• Nofollow links and AI search
• Using nofollow links correctly on your site

What are nofollow links?

A nofollow link is an ordinary HTML link with a rel attribute containing nofollow: <a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">Example</a>. The attribute is invisible to readers. It is a note to search engines about your relationship with the page you are linking to. MDN’s reference for the rel attribute describes it as telling search engine spiders to ignore the link relationship, and notes that it may indicate the page owner does not endorse the referenced document.

Two points of vocabulary clear up most confusion:

• “Dofollow” is not an attribute. A link with no rel value is simply a normal link. “Dofollow” is SEO slang for the absence of nofollow, though the 2024 Web Almanac still found rel="dofollow" on 0.5% of mobile pages, where it does nothing.
• noopener and noreferrer are not nofollow. Some CMSs add these to links that open in a new tab. According to MDN, they control the browsing context and the referrer header. They say nothing to search engines about endorsement. They are also far more common: the same Almanac found noopener on 41.7% of mobile pages and noreferrer on 23.9%.

How Google’s 2019 hint change works

In September 2019 Google changed nofollow from a directive into a hint and introduced two new values. Its announcement, Evolving “nofollow”, set out the model still in use. The timeline below shows the steps.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.

The practical meaning of “hint”: Google says all three values are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. It may still use a nofollowed link, for example to discover a page, if other signals suggest it should. Google also said you do not need to change existing nofollow attributes, that there is no penalty for not adopting the new values, and that values can be combined.

Most sites took Google at its word. The 2024 Web Almanac found nofollow on 32.7% of pages, up from 29.5% in 2022, while sponsored appeared on 0.4% and ugc on 0.3%.

Nofollow, sponsored or ugc: which to use

Use sponsored for links you were paid for, ugc for links your users added, and nofollow when neither applies but you do not want to vouch for the page. Google’s guide to qualifying outbound links defines each one:

The decision tree below covers most real cases.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.

Two cases catch people out. Free products: the spam policies list sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link. If you send samples to reviewers, the resulting links should be qualified. Exchanges: excessive link exchanges and partner pages built only for cross-linking are also on the list, so a “links” page swapping followed links with twenty suppliers is a risk, not a strategy.

The rule that carries real risk is the paid one. Google’s spam policies list buying or selling links that pass ranking credit as link spam, and state that such links are not a violation when qualified with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". If you publish sponsored content, label the links. If you buy placements, expect them to be labeled.

Do nofollow links help SEO?

Links marked nofollow probably pass little ranking value, but “none at all” is no longer a safe claim, and they help in other ways. Since the hint change, Google may consider a nofollowed link when deciding what to crawl, index or rank; it has not said how often or how much. What is certain:

• They send visitors. A qualified link in a popular article, forum thread or directory still brings people who click.
• They support discovery. Pages linked with nofollow can still be found, and Google’s outbound links guide notes pages may be discovered through other routes such as sitemaps and links from other sites.
• They build a natural profile. Real-world link profiles include a mix of followed and nofollowed links, because many large platforms qualify outbound links by default.
• Mentions matter beyond links. A citation in a respected publication is read by people, journalists and AI systems whether or not it carries a rel value.

What they will not do is substitute for followed editorial links from relevant sites. Build a plan around earning those, as covered in link building strategies, and treat qualified links as a welcome side effect. What are backlinks explains how links fit into ranking more generally.

When should you not use nofollow?

Do not use nofollow on your own internal links, and do not add it to every outbound link by default. Both are common, and both work against you.

Internal links. Google’s qualify outbound links guide says that for links within your own site, you should use a robots.txt disallow rule if you do not want a page crawled, and the noindex rule if you do not want it indexed. Nofollowing internal links to “sculpt” ranking value is not the tool Google recommends for either job, and it can leave important pages weakly linked. Our internal linking guide covers the alternatives.

Blanket nofollow on outbound links. Google’s link best practices say to use nofollow only when you do not trust the source, and not for every external link on your site. Citing a government page, a study or a respected publication with a normal link is what good editorial sites do. Check your CMS and plugins: some add nofollow to every external link, and the setting is easy to miss.

The one place to be strict: user-generated links. Google’s SEO Starter Guide advises making sure every link posted by users has a nofollow or similar annotation added automatically. Comment spam is still a real problem, and a qualified link removes the incentive.

How to check if a link is nofollow

You can check a single link in your browser in seconds and every link on a site with a crawler. The comparison below shows the four common methods.

Scroll the diagram sideways to see all of it.

For a site-wide check, Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider crawls up to 500 URLs in its free version, which covers most small sites; the paid license is $279 per year. Filter the outlinks export for links to domains you are paid by, links in comment sections, and any internal links carrying nofollow. That review is one step of the link check in how to do an SEO audit.

When checking links other sites give you, remember what the label means: a nofollowed link from a relevant, respected site is still a good sign that people cite your work, and it is not a reason to ask the site owner to change it.

Nofollow links and AI search

Nofollow is a search engine convention, and no AI assistant documents how, or whether, it treats rel values when choosing sources. What we can say from the documentation that does exist:

• Google’s AI features follow Google’s index. Google’s AI features documentation says a page must be indexed and eligible for a snippet to appear as a link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. A nofollowed link pointing at your page does not change your page’s eligibility; your own robots rules and snippet controls do.
• Assistants read pages, not link graphs alone. When ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini summarize a topic, the text of a review, a forum thread or a news article is what they process. A mention of your business in that text is visible to them whether the link beside it is followed or not.

So a nofollowed mention in a respected publication can still do the job that matters most for AI visibility: put your name, accurately described, in a source the engines read. That is why digital PR for AI search counts mentions rather than only followed links, and why how AI engines choose citations focuses on corroboration across sources. Treat this as an inference from how the systems describe themselves, not a documented rule.

Using nofollow links correctly on your site

Using nofollow links correctly comes down to labeling honestly. Paid and affiliate links get sponsored. Comment and forum links get ugc, added automatically. Links you must include but cannot vouch for get nofollow. Everything you cite because it is good stays a normal link, and internal links are never nofollowed.

Once that is set up, it rarely needs attention beyond checking after CMS or plugin changes. The anchor wording on those links matters too; see anchor text for how Google reads it. If you want your outbound links, sponsored content and internal link setup checked in one pass, alongside indexing and AI visibility, our AI visibility audit includes a full link review.