Nofollow Link

A nofollow link is a link that includes a rel="nofollow" attribute, which tells Google not to pass ranking credit (link equity) through that link. A normal link — often called "dofollow" — is the default and does pass authority to the page it points to.

The purpose is to let you link to something without endorsing it in Google's eyes. If a local news site links to your business in an editorial article, that is a normal endorsing link. But if you pay for a placement, or a random commenter drops a link in your blog comments, you would not want to vouch for those — nofollow is how you say so.

Google's guidance is clear about when to mark links so they do not pass credit:

• Paid or sponsored links — anything you paid for, including ads and paid placements. Google prefers rel="sponsored" here.
• User-generated content — comments, forum posts, and profile links you do not control. Google suggests rel="ugc".
• Links you cannot vouch for — pages you reference but do not endorse. Plain rel="nofollow" fits.

These attributes protect you from looking like you are participating in link schemes, which can trigger penalties. Note that Google now treats these as hints rather than strict commands for crawling and indexing, but they remain the correct, honest way to mark non-endorsing links.

For earning links the right way, most of the links you actually want are regular backlinks that do pass credit. The full context is in our how backlinks work guide.