A Blogger’s Guide to Nofollow Links and When You Should Use Them

A Blogger's Guide to Nofollow Links and When You Should Use Them

Last week I talked about things bloggers must do when accepting freebies, and it touched on the subject of using nofollow links.

However I know it remains a very confusing subject for many of us, so I thought I’d dedicate a whole blog post to the, er, joys(!) of nofollow links in a handy blogger’s guide.

I’ll try and write it all in layman’s terms wherever possible as some bloggers may be completely unfamiliar with the term “nofollow” links – and likewise with “follow” links – if you’re thinking “Huh?! What on EARTH is she talking about?” then this post is for you… ALL BLOGGERS need to know about this, so keep reading!

The use of nofollow links is something that many bloggers are completely unaware of. After all, no one hands you a guidebook when setting up a blog to tell you what you should and shouldn’t be doing (but they should! I believe blogging platforms should send you Terms & Conditions that you read and sign when you start a blog, and all these sorts of rules should be included in there. Anyway, I digress).

Nofollow links can be a huge bone of contention between brands/PRs and bloggers, and if you are offered payment for a “follow link” then my advice is simple:

DO NOT WORK WITH THEM. They are asking you to break the rules and put your blog at risk for their own benefit.

And here’s why…

 

What are nofollow and follow links?

First of all, all links are theoretically follow by default. So this is what all [follow] links do:

Adding a link that sends people to another site results in Google actively following the link. This will then increase the other site’s trustworthiness and PageRank (what Google uses to determine the importance of a web page). It boosts the site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation), in other words.

The bigger and more reputable the site that featured the link, the more it’ll boost the SEO of the site it points to. Remember, all links you create on your blog are follow unless you purposely make them otherwise. Make sense so far?

Changing a link to nofollow means that Google won’t follow the link and therefore SEO won’t be boosted. However, they still count as valuable click-throughs in terms of traffic (page views) so they’re far from worthless.

 

So why should some links be nofollow?

In bloggers’ cases, nofollow links should be used when you have received some sort of payment, either in cash, product or services, in relation to that link. Google don’t like payment being used as a “bribe” to influence SEO – they’re much more keen to see it being grown organically. Payment (cash or goods) for follow links is seen as artificially boosting SEO, or manipulating PageRank.

For example, say you’ve received a range of hair products to try and you feature them on your blog. It makes sense that you’d link to the brand’s site so that your readers can also buy them. Changing the link(s) to the brand’s site to nofollow will prove to Google that you – and the brand – are NOT trying to manipulate PageRank. Basically, by making a link nofollow you’re safe to accept payment or product in exchange for that link without violating Google’s guidelines on link schemes.

 

When you SHOULD use nofollow links

Here are some examples of when you SHOULD make a link nofollow:

  • When you have received payment to write a blog post/publish pre-written content (includes guest posts and copy written by an external party) that includes a particular link
  • When you have received gifted items or accepted services (e.g. a free hotel stay) to review or feature on your blog, even if there was no cash payment
  • For any affiliate links where you may receive commission, e.g. rewardStyle or ShopStyle links
  • Anything that you consider to be untrusted content

 

When you should NOT use nofollow links

Likewise, there are many instances when you do not want to make a link nofollow… Some bloggers feel it’s better to be safe than sorry and make ALL links nofollow. DO NOT DO THIS – this could be just as harmful to your blog! It’s good for the SEO of your own blog to link to trusted, external sites regularly. It’s not the only reason of course, but it’s one reason why I publish regular featured blogger round ups or monthly “Best of the Blogosphere” links.

Here are the types of links that should definitely be left as follow:

  • Links to other blogs or sites that you’re referencing (you want to boost their SEO!)
  • Products or services that you bought/acquired yourself or like and are writing about with no direct influence from the brand or a PR
  • Links to other posts on your own blog (this is a great way to boost your own SEO and should be something you regularly do)

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, do NOT work with brands that offer you payment for follow links or insist on a follow link in exchange for gifted items.

They know (or SHOULD know) perfectly well that Google do not take kindly to artificially boosted SEO. But you don’t know the extent to which their campaign is running and they will most likely try and tell you that “they’re only guidelines” (or some other nonsense) that makes out you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Believe me, I’ve had some pretty condescending replies sent to me in my time by brands and PRs. You’re being asked to take a risk, and it’s a risk not worth taking because both your blog and the brand’s site may be penalised.

(As a blogger I NEVER take on any collaborations unless the brand/PR agrees to nofollow links in any blog posts I write. And I do not think favourably of any brand or PR company that asks me to do so, either.)

If you want solid proof of a time that Google took action against a company that worked with bloggers in the wrong way, read how Interflora was wiped off the face of the internet for a while back in 2013. Food for thought.

 

How do I make my links nofollow?

Nofollow links in Blogger

All links are follow by default in Blogger. To make a link nofollow:

  1. Highlight the text you want to hyperlink and click on the “Link” button as normal.
  2. In the window where you add your link, check the box in the bottom-left corner that says “Add ‘rel=nofollow’ attribute”. Ticking this box will make it a nofollow link. Done.

 

Nofollow links in WordPress

I’d recommend getting a plugin that adds a title and a rel=”nofollow” checkbox to the insert link popup box: I use Title and Nofollow For Links and it works a treat.

 

Creating nofollow links with HTML code

If you’re happy to tweak HTML code, this is what you need to change. A follow (normal) link will look like this:

<a href=”http://NOTDRESSEDASLAMB.com”>

To make it nofollow, add rel=”nofollow” as shown in bold below:

<a href=”http://NOTDRESSEDASLAMB.com” rel=”nofollow”>

It gets a little complicated if you want it to open in a new tab (this should be something you do more often than not so visitors don’t leave and forget about your site) – you need to add in target=”_blank as below:

<a href=”http://NOTDRESSEDASLAMB.com” target=”_blank” rel=”nofollow”>

 

But remember, both Blogger and WordPress give you a checkbox when creating links that make it open in a new tab. I’d recommend you do it that way, it’s less messy and avoids tiny mistakes in HTML that could mean your link doesn’t work at all.

What happens if you don’t change relevant links to nofollow?

Nothing will happen straight away – even Google isn’t capable of checking every link on every site and decide whether it should be a nofollow link or a follow. Your blog won’t be immediately shut down if you forget to change a link to nofollow when it clearly should be that way.

(But as Google owns and runs Blogger then I think those using the Blogger platform should be extra specially careful.)

Saying that, Google is very good at getting its act together, so why run the risk when it’s such a simple thing to do? Plus, not working ethically and honestly is not clever and isn’t the way to run a blog, whether it’s a hobby or a business. If goods or cash have exchanged hands then it IS a business to a greater or lesser extent, and all businesses have to abide by the rules.

Worst case scenario is that Google penalises you (meaning your PageRank and SEO suffers and you drop off Google search results) as well as the brand if you break the rules. You may be wondering why brands ask bloggers to flout the rules by adding a follow link, but they’re either stupid and willing to take the risk or simply naive.

The more that bloggers insist on making links nofollow when they work with a brand, the more we can stamp out bad practice and brands preying on newbie and uninformed bloggers.

So remember, just say NO to paid follow links… Nofollow is GOOD. Don’t take that chance.

 

A quick summary of nofollow links

The easiest way to remember whether to use nofollow links is to ask yourself: Was I paid in relation to this link in either goods, services or cash? If the answer is yes, then you MUST make it a nofollow link. Untrusted content is the only other time you should (ideally) make the link nofollow.

Otherwise, you WANT to boost that Google juice for other bloggers, brands you buy from and/or like and trusted sites. Remember, it does your SEO good to link to other worthy sites.

Good blogging is just as much about helping others as it is about helping yourself!

 

ARE YOU NOW A LITTLE CLEARER ON NOFOLLOW LINKS AND WHEN TO USE THEM? COMMENT BELOW…

Pin for future reference:

A Blogger's Guide to Nofollow Links and When You Should Use Them

43 Comments

  1. 1 January 2021 / 7:21 pm

    Thank you so much for explaining this in “layman’s terms”. I revisited this article as I was still a little unsure of how it worked, but all clear now. xxx

  2. 30 July 2018 / 11:20 am

    I’m so glad I found this post! Thank you so much for sharing, that really helped! xo

  3. 12 June 2018 / 1:20 pm

    Thank you for this article, I heard about this, but didn’t know how to do it, and now I know 🙂

  4. 29 April 2018 / 1:02 pm

    Wow! Nice information you shared. I know a little about these all but didn’t know in brief. Taanks for sharing.

  5. 19 March 2018 / 11:41 am

    It’s still a little fuzzy in my head but this post is helping to make it clearer! Thank you 🙂

  6. 23 July 2017 / 4:17 pm

    Thank you for this!!!
    A company contacted me recently about a post they asked me to do saying that I needed to remove or nofollow a link I had to their site.
    The email said that they "noticed" my site had a link to theirs and that I should "know that this is not a negative reflection of your site or its content".

    I was very confused considering they contacted me about creating a post and never mentioned anything about nofollow or dofollow links, and especially as I hadn't accepted a payment of any kind.
    I didn't understand what they wanted me to do so I not only got rid of the link, but I also took their products out of my wishlist.

    Reading this I definitely understand more about nofollow and dofollow!!!!

    Jaye x
    The Life of JayeP

    • 25 July 2017 / 2:38 pm

      Jaye they don't really have any right to ask you to do anything at all unless it was a collaboration and an agreement was made between you at the time. What you link to on your blog is entirely up to you.

      However I'm a little confused… are you saying it WAS a collaboration? Did they gift you items? I know you said it wasn't paid but I wasn't sure if you created the post as a result of them sending you some gifted items. Therefore if they DID send you freebies, then they should have asked you to make the link(s) nofollow at the time, but it seems they've asked you to do it retrospectively.

      Hopefully that makes sense…! x

    • 25 July 2017 / 9:08 pm

      They didn't gift me any items, they only asked if I was interested in creating a post around a hashtag they had created.

      I totally understand what you mean, I will definitely keep it in mind for the future!

      Jaye x

  7. 23 July 2017 / 11:49 am

    Thanks Catherine. I was aware of it and I know the subject. I will recheck, but I think I have everything on dofollow as I don't accept any money or gifts.
    Greetje

  8. 22 July 2017 / 11:25 am

    Catherine,

    Wonderful educational post!
    So glad Debbie @fashionfairydust added your link to her post!

  9. 20 July 2017 / 7:42 pm

    Thank you for an interesting piece. Hopefully this will be very useful for me within the next few weeks. And one of the questions I had for an established blogger was how does it look if you review a product or a place you've paid for yourself (without it being a sponsored post)? And would readers think you were doing some covert advertising without disclosure? Simply asking because when your blog is new you may choose to write about things you've tried, which of course won't be sponsored as you've only just started blogging.

    • 25 July 2017 / 2:34 pm

      I don't think it's something you should worry about at all, Emerald – bloggers review things every day and to be honest they're more often NOT sponsored than sponsored (if you consider the number of fashion, beauty and lifestyle blogs out there). The best thing to do is simply have a disclosure at the end of the post (or even better, at the beginning) saying whether it's sponsored or not. I know many bloggers who gush about a product and state clearly that it wasn't a paid post… I often do it myself!

      Hope that helps x

  10. 20 July 2017 / 6:52 pm

    We've done it again my friend…awhile back you and I published posts on shadowbanning within a few days of each other and today I posted about nofollow links! This is such a great explanation. I'm going to revise my post right now and link to yours…with a dofollow link…lol!
    Debbie
    http://www.fashionfairydust.com

    • 25 July 2017 / 2:30 pm

      Debbie thank you so much for adding a link to your post! How weird that we've done it again…?!!!!

  11. 20 July 2017 / 2:18 pm

    Fantastic and important blogger info, thank you so much for explaining it for us. Great post. Xo Jonet

  12. 20 July 2017 / 12:53 pm

    This is really an interesting guide and I hope that this will make us able to know all the situations on which we should use nofollow link tags in comments and other posts.
    Emma Charlotte | TheAcademicPapers.co.uk

  13. 20 July 2017 / 7:32 am

    mummabstylish said…
    Thank You so much for this blog post – easy to read, and very informative. x Jacqui

  14. 20 July 2017 / 12:06 am

    Thank you so much! I'm learning as I go and had no idea what no-follow links were until now. So important, thanks again! http://www.primadarling.com

  15. 19 July 2017 / 8:51 pm

    Aha! Thanks so much for this – I have a very small hobby blog, but with a couple of sort of sponsored posts on the way, this is perfect timing!

  16. 19 July 2017 / 7:09 pm

    Oh my god! I need to sit down at a table with you for at least an hour. I've so many questions now. I will definitely work on it tomorrow. But I don't understand the blank part. What do you mean with open in a new tab. And how can I check if my,,no follow,, link works.

    • 20 July 2017 / 7:52 am

      Tabs are like windows (of your browser), Nancy – in a window you can have many tabs open. If you look at the top of your browser window, do you have more than one website open at a time? If so, you've got a few tabs open. So you WANT an external site to open in a new tab, not the same one, because otherwise they will have left your site and might get too stuck into the new site they're looking at.

      You get a checkbox in Blogger (and I think there's one in WP too) that asks you if you want to open the link in a new WINDOW – they really mean tab.

      To check if your nofollow link works (I assume you mean check that it's definitely a nofollow link?), either right click on the link and go to "Inspect" or do Ctrl+Shift+I. You'll get a small window open up and it will show you the coding for the link, you'll see in there that it says nofollow.

      However I NEVER check mine – as long as you've selected nofollow when creating the link then you are fine! x

    • 20 July 2017 / 9:27 am

      Thank you very !uch Catherine! This is so very helpfull. Just one question,I checked some old links and of course they look different then your example, but do I always add the rel etc. Before the >

    • 20 July 2017 / 9:52 am

      Sorry Just really last one question. Completely understand if you don t have the time to answer….but I ll take my chance! Can you still use the links brands provider you with?

    • 20 July 2017 / 12:21 pm

      HI Nancy, no problem at all! It doesn't matter what link it is – you either make it nofollow or you don't. So it doesn't matter if you use the direct link to a site's homepage, or a bitly link, or a tracking link from a brand, YOU decide whether to make it a nofollow link, or not. The link itself won't be affected, it affects whether or not Google goes running after it to pin an SEO badge on it… That's the best way I can describe it!

      Nofollow = no SEO badge (because it's not allowed an SEO badge if the link was paid for).

  17. 19 July 2017 / 6:33 pm

    Seriously, there SHOULD be a manual! Who would have ever known to look into something like this, it makes perfect sense that a brand would pay to TO link to their website. But I understand now why it's not good in Google's eyes.

    Thank you!

    • 20 July 2017 / 7:45 am

      Yes to the manual, Bettye! I can't believe that Google runs Blogger, lets anyone start a blog, then leaves them open to getting penalised because they didn't know any better because nothing was explained to the new blogger about what's expected of them and what the rules are. It's long overdue…

  18. 19 July 2017 / 5:59 pm

    So this was THE single most confusing issue I struggled with when I first started blogging. I could not get my head around it AT ALL. Well that was until my awesome blogger friend explained it to me brilliantly in very simple lay terms. Then it was actually super easy & I've never had a problem with it since.
    Oh by the way that blogger friend was YOU xxx

    • 20 July 2017 / 7:43 am

      Oh bless you MT, thank you – I'm glad to have been the person that explained it clearly to you! It IS quite simple, I think some people present it in a confusing way with too much jargon so maybe that's why many bloggers are confused…!

  19. 19 July 2017 / 5:14 pm

    I need to work on this–so thanks for the prompt. Did I hear that there is a plugin to do this also?? If not, they need to work on it! LOL
    XOXO
    Jodie
    http://www.jtouchofstyle.com

    • 19 July 2017 / 6:01 pm

      Yes there is Jody it's simply called "Follownofollow links" Once installed it will appear as a box to tick every time you insert a link.

    • 20 July 2017 / 7:41 am

      Oh yes I forgot to mention that – will amend (and thanks MT). Though I know there are some nofollow plugins that don't give you the option and make ALL links nofollow, so those need to be avoided. x

  20. 19 July 2017 / 5:04 pm

    Excellent guidance Catherine!

    • 20 July 2017 / 7:37 am

      I hope you feel more informed now, hon…! 🙂

  21. 19 July 2017 / 2:47 pm

    Catherine you have such a talent at getting the facts across without sounding patronising, or too jargony.
    This all makes perfect sense!

    I have been asked to offer do-follow links for the enormous fee of £50.
    I laughed.
    I'm not interested in compromising my blog for any sum.

    Thank you for (yet another) helpful blogging post.
    XXX
    Samantha
    Fake Fabulous | Style and Fashion, over 40

    • 20 July 2017 / 7:37 am

      It's amazing how often it happens, isn't it Samantha?!!

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