A guide to no follow links
Nofollow (or no follow) versus dofollow (do follow) links. It’s something you hear an awful lot but can be tricky to understand before it’s explained to you. I’m not an expert, but this is my understanding of it. Hopefully it will be helpful!
Can you tell just from looking at the link?
The first thing to know, is that whichever link you use, it will look and work in an identical manner to people reading your site. They will see the link as usual, and if they click on it, it will take them to the site you’re redirecting them to.
Why use no follow links?
When you link to a website, the link is automatically a ‘dofollow’ link. When Google send out their analysing robots, (it makes my head hurt when I think about how this actually works!), they will follow these links from one website to another. These links are known as organic.
Spell it out to me!
Take this example;
I go out and buy some shoes, I love them and feel the need to rave about them to my readers. I put a link in so that they can find the shoes themselves. I’ve not received compensation for my time from the brand, either in the form of money or the gift of the shoes, so it’s a totally natural recommendation and therefore fine to be an organic dofollow link.
When to use a no follow link
Google say you should use a nofollow link if you had received either money, vouchers or the product from the brand. This is because it is not an organic link.
Why is it important?
Google relies on the information these robots collect when doing these ‘crawls’ of the net to accurately pass information on to their searchers. I’m going to stick with shoes for the analogy here.
Say a company, let’s call them SPS, Slightly Pants Shoes, are struggling to rank with Google. They can’t build their website rating, or DA, because no one is organically linking back to them because their shoes are a bit pants. This means they are on page 50 when someone searches for shoes and so they never get any business.
The company realises that the only way to get higher up in the Google search results, and therefore seen by potential customers, is to get some of these precious backlinks from websites with higher DAs, (this is a number out of 100 that the website ‘scores’), then themselves. They contact lots of site owners, and offer them some money to link to them. The better rated sites decide to go for the deal, and publish the links on their sites, and this in turn boosts the SPS site’s own ranking, moving them higher up the search results.
Why does that matter?
In the grand scheme of things, it’s hard to see why it matters, but to Google, it’s very important because they rely on the information their robots bring back being accurate. Now that SPS has bought itself so many links, it is ranking much higher in the search results, and so being found by more people, the problem is, the product they are selling is still slightly pants. People start to lose their faith in the search engine for bringing them up websites which sell slightly shoddy products every time they search for something and maybe decide to use a different search engine. This is obviously bad news for Google. However, it should be pointed out that the top results you always see are always marked AD because they will happily take money from the brand directly to bump them to the top.
What are the risks?
Well the problem is if Google find out, then they can in theory penalise both sites involved, the brand and the site or blogger that published the link, potentially pushing them way down the search ranking or removing them from search results altogether. However you will always get a notification if there are unnatural links detected on your site, and a chance to ‘clean up’ your site. People often never receive this warning and if they do, generally after deleting the offending links, they have been reinstated after being penalised so it’s really personal choice whether you want to take the chance, just do your research and make sure you are suitably compensated if you do decide to have dofollow links on your site. Worth pointing out as well that it’s not illegal, you aren’t breaking any laws, it’s just against Google’s Ts and Cs.
How do I write a no follow link? (WordPress)
This is so so easy! Seriously, don’t be scared. All you need to do is add a little bit of code to the link to make it no follow. Don’t switch off when you hear code, this is something everyone can do, pinky promise! You can get plugins that change your links for you. I would advice against making your entire site nofollow though, (there are plugins that can do this for you), as you then don’t have any organic links, which also doesn’t help your ranking!.
First the link, I’m going to link to my handy blogger’s how to section of my website so you can head there after if you liked this and want some more tips. 🙂 You can find it here.
Now what? Well I am writing in WordPress and so at the top right of the box are two tabs, Visual and Text. I now need to click into text view. I shall highlight and copy the link so you know what you’re looking for.
This is what my link looks like; <a href=”http://pinkpearbear.com/blogger-how-to/”>here.</a>
To make it no follow, I just need to insert the following; rel=”nofollow” after the first <a making it look like this;
<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://pinkpearbear.com/blogger-how-to/”>here.</a>
Et voila! It is now a link that your readers can click on as normal, but the google bots will stop at.
Here is the official Google Page on it. This post also has a lot of great info too.
If you’d like to know your own DA, your website’s score out of 100, you can check it on Moz’s site.
Oh my god THANK YOU!
I think you actually got through to me: the most is clearing!!
Such a helpful piece, you could be a teacher.
Big love,
L xxx
Oh thank you!! You’ve made my morning!! I’m so glad it could help!!xx
A-M-A-Z-I-N-G
After all this time, a husband in IT and attending a blog conference seminar on this very subject, you are the FIRST person to make proper sense on this one.
Congrats – have some cake xx
#Bigpinklink
This is so helpful! I’ve been meaning to read up on the nofollow links thing but you’ve saved me a job as this it explains it perfectly! One question if you don’t mind me asking – if a company has given you vouchers to write a post to feature on their website (like a guest blog) but you haven’t featured any of their products, and you want to write your own post on your own blog directing people to your guest post, is it still a nofollow situation?! #bigpinklink x
Nope, you lost me on Nofollow and Nofollow. Are you out of the Hobbit? Is that some sort of Elfish language you speak?
My head hurts after reading that. I am going to have a little lie down.
#bigpinklink
The whole follow/not follow thing can be very confusing, especially when companies try to bully bloggers into leaving follow links.
#bigpinklink
ah! I hear lots of this jargon but have never understood as I don’t work with brands but at least I know where to come to if I ever do. Well done for trying to make this clearer #BigPinkLink
Totally brilliant post in simple easy language to understand for new bloggers especially it’s excellent thanks for hosting #bigpinklink
I have never heard of dofollow-nofollow links, I think this has just confirmed the fact that I have so much still to learn!! I’m sure that this all makes perfect sense if you know what you’re doing, I’m saving it for a time when I am more clued up! #bigpinklink
Thanks for a really great easy to understand post! xx #bigpinklink
I’ve never noticed before but there’s a little tick box to tick/untick on blogspot! Thank you for the clear explanation #bigpinlink
Thank you thank you thank you! I have never been able to get my head around this but I finally get it thanks to your shoe analogy! I have recently been approached by a company wanting to pay me to post “dofollow” links and not disclose that I have been compensated. Far too dodgy for my liking and so I didn’t respond, although I wasn’t entirely sure why. Now I get it and I’m so pleased that I didn’t go ahead. Thanks lovely. I’m bookmarking this to come back to xx #bigpinklink
Thank you so so much for sharing this! I’ve been breaking into a sweat every time I saw this mentioned anywhere as I didn’t have a scooby what it meant! #bigpinklink
This is so helpful, i didnt have a clue before reading this! Thank you. #bigpinklink
Having just written my first post where I received the item in return for the review I am so glad you wrote this – I was literally just trying to puzzle out the whole no-follow thing last night #bigpinklink
Can’t go wrong with a shoe analogy, in my humble opinion! This is a very helpful article and I will be bookmarking it for future reference! #BigPinkLink
Oooh so so so helpful. Well done for making sense of it and getting to make sense to others! I had a rough idea but that has really helped. Although I am a little confused still…surely lots of bloggers who do sponsored posts most use do follow links all the time without being spotted? It’s sounds like a massive risk to take but I guess people do it a lot? Hmmm anywho I’m definetly pinning this post to remind myself how it all works when iv forgotten it, probably in about 30 minutes xx #bigpinklink
Thank you. That was so straightforward for me!! Now I need to find explanations on all the other things I keep reading about!!! #bigpinklink
I have only just mastered Twitter. I think I will have to read this again when I get better at IT! #bigpinklink
And this is one reason why I don’t do paid stuff. Google’s rules around this stuff and all this techy stuff anyway, gives me a headache. I like how you used the shoe analogy though. It did make it better to understand. Thanks for hosting #bigpinklink
Wow. I knew nothing about this at all. Really handy to know. Thank you. Just got to find some slightly pants shoe manufacturers to pay me to do nofollow links now… #bigpinklink
Such a helpful post and so good to have it literally spelled out haha. It took me a really long time to get my head around it, I didn’t even know it was a ‘thing’ for a long time! #bigpinklink
OK I’m still not 100% sure bit will investigate further as I never knew anything about this at all! #bigpinklink
THANK YOU FOR THIS. I have never written a sponsored post, so have never used nofollow links, but I have been wondering exactly what they are, and how you make follow links nofollow, etc, so this spells it all out to me in very plain English. #bigpinklink
You have explained this perfectly! The whole no follow/follow thing is so confusing. It frustrates me how many brands ask for follow links without considering the risks for the blogger publishing them. Your shoe analogy make everything so much clearer, especially for new bloggers. Will share this 🙂 xx #bigpinklink
All my links must be dofollow I didnt realise, heres something else to work on in future ta x
This stuff scares me! I don’t think that it affects me, as I don’t work with brands BUT if I did this post would be awesome. I love your ‘pants shoes’ analogy. Such a good post for those in need – well done for shining a beacon of light on it! Alison x #bigpinklink
OMG! I just bookmarked this Shakespearean baby and will reference as needed. I didn’t even know about nofollow links! Now I do, and I’m sharing! M’wah to you, and thanks! <3 <3 <3 #bigpinklink
This is something I have struggled with in the past, but after that I honestly get it! Perfectly written, I’m Pinning for future reference!
#bigpinklink
I’ll deff have to save this one! well done on pulling together 🙂 #bigpinklink
This could have saved me hours of Googling when I was just starting out! Really simply put and easy to follow!
#BigPinkLink
You’ve explained this so clearly and concisely. I must have learned about no-follow links so many times and I always forget again. Hopefully, you’ll have helped me actually remember!
#bigpinklink
I’d heard the terms but like many, MANY tech related things it scared the pants off me. I’m happy to report I read the whole thing, pants firmly in place. Brilliant piece thank you for explaining x #bigpinklink
I’m very pleased that this was a pants on piece!! 😀 I know what you mean. Tech stuff always scares the heebie-jeebies out of me until I manage to untangle the jargon in my mind!
Thank you for explaining this in easy to understand terms, this is definitely a topic I have only just got my head around- wish I’d had this to read a long time ago!! #bigpinklink xx
I rarely actually use nofollow links as my understanding from my website designer is that the ‘rules’ are constantly changing and Google won’t actually de-rank you. That’s what he said anyway! #bigpinklink
It’s hard to keep up isn’t it?! Their current guidelines seem to state that they are still unhappy about the practise but whether or not you get caught or de-ranked is the risk I suppose, especially as they might change the rules back and catch you out! (Not meaning you personally but writing one makes me feel weird! 😀 ) It all seems very stressful! 🙂
There seems to be a big issue with this recently doesn’t there! I’m glad I understand it the same way as you means I actually know something for a change! #bigpinklink
It seems to be all I see on groups at the moment, hence my reason for writing this. I’m really pleased I have it straight, it’s one of those posts you write and then doubt yourself!
Love this post as it puts everything into very simple terms for me – which I need lol!! I have had to say no to a could of sponsored posts now as they insist on follow links 🙁 x
It’s really hard isn’t it. I think it’s all down to personal choice really, but I don’t really fancy taking the risk.xx
Ooo this is interesting as I am hoping to go self hosted soon and was thinking about using a plugin but hadn’t thought about organic links! May have to reconsider. Thanks for hosting #BigPinkLink xx
Oh I’m glad it was helpful! I think there is a plug in where you just tick a box for follow/unfollow when you add your links.xx
This is amazing and I have finally had the chance to use it! Thank you!!
Oh brilliant!! That’s so cool that you’ve been able to use it too! How exciting!!!
I’ve been blogging almost 2 years, but now I FINALLY understand follow/nofollow links. Thank you
This was a very insightful post and explains the follow/no follow rules really well, in easy to understand english, it was a little funny with the analogies as well 🙂
You have made my day! I didn’t really get the whole follow and no follow but your post made it super easy! Thank you
You’re so welcome Jade! It scrambles my brain too until I managed to see it like this.
Well, this has been baffling me for ages! So pleased to read it in terms I understand (i.e.: SHOES)
Thanks!
Really helpful! Thanks for sharing 🙂