Guide : Nofollow

TL;DR — rel="nofollow" is a little tag vous ajouter to a lien to tell search engines “I don’t vouch for this — don’t pass my ranking signals to it.” It’s utile pour ads, affiliate liens, and liens left by random utilisateurs (comments). The big chose personnes obtenir incorrect: nofollow fait pas hide une page from Google. It’s pas the même as noindex, and it doesn’t reliably block exploration.

Evidence for this claim Google recommends rel=nofollow when other qualification values do not apply and the publisher would rather Google not associate with or crawl the linked page from that site. Scope: Per-link Google guidance; nofollow is a hint, not a guaranteed crawl block. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Qualify outbound links Evidence for this claim A link-level nofollow is not a reliable way to prevent the destination URL from being crawled or indexed. Scope: Google can discover a URL through other links, sitemaps, or sources; use page-level controls for indexing. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Robots meta tag

Ce que a nofollow lien is

A normal lien semble comme ce:

<a href="https://example.com">Example</a>

A nofollowed lien simplement adds un attribute:

<a rel="nofollow" href="https://example.com">Example</a>

Que rel="nofollow" is a message to moteur de recherches: I’m linking to ce page, but I don’t vouloir to vouch pour it or réussir my site’s ranking strength to it. Everything sinon à propos de the lien fonctionne exactly the même — personnes peut encore click it and visit lune page.

Pourquoi it exists

Google introduced nofollow back in 2005, with autre moteur de recherches, to fight spam. Spammers were dropping liens to leur sites in blog comments and guestbooks to essayer to boost leur rankings. Nofollow gave site owners a façon to dire “ces liens don’t count as a vote from me.”

Quand to utiliser it

The everyday uses:

• Ads and paid liens — anything vous got paid to lien to.
• Affiliate liens — liens où vous earn a commission.
• User-generated liens — comments, forum posts, profile liens: anything a visitor (pas vous) ajouté.
• Pages vous lien to but don’t vouloir to endorse — dire you’re quoting a bad exemple.

Pour ads and utilisateur content, Google now en réalité prefers two newer, plus spécifique tags — rel="sponsored" pour paid liens and rel="ugc" pour user-generated ones — but plain nofollow encore fonctionne fine, and vous pouvez même combine les.

The chose almost everyone obtient incorrect

A nofollow lien ne fait pas hide une page from Google. Ce is the #1 myth, and you’ll encore voir it repeated in old guides.

Nofollow is a link-level tag — it’s à propos de si vous vouch pour a lien. It is pas the même as:

• noindex — qui is ce que en réalité garde une page out of Google’s results.
• Blocking in robots.txt — qui is ce que contrôle exploration.

Si vous nofollow a lien, Google peut encore trouver, explorer, and index que page via autre routes — votre sitemap, un autre site linking to it, or un autre lien on votre propre site que isn’t nofollowed. So si votre réel goal is “garder ce page out of Google,” nofollow is the incorrect outil. (Plus on indexation and noindex in the deeper version.)

Vouloir the complet history, the 2019–2020 modifier from “rule” to “hint,” and exactly quand to utiliser nofollow vs sponsored vs ugc? Switch to the Avancé tab.

Testez vos connaissances: nofollow

Nofollow mistakes to supprimer from the playbook

• PageRank sculpting internal navigation. Nofollowing selected lien internes ne fait pas funnel leur share to the remaining liens; it peut seulement weaken normal discovery and architecture du site.
• En utilisant nofollow to garder a destination out of search. It is a hint on lien handling, pas noindex. L’URL peut be trouvé via sitemaps or autre liens.
• Marking every outbound editorial citation nofollow. Trusted références ne faites pas besoin blanket qualification. Utiliser the rel valeur que truthfully describes the relationship.
• En utilisant plain nofollow quand the relationship is connu. Préférer sponsored pour paid or affiliate liens and ugc pour user-added liens; combine valeurs quand les deux appliquer.
• Confusing link-level and page-level scope. rel="nofollow" qualifies un anchor; <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> addresses every lien on the page. Neither removes que page from the index.
• Treating a hint as a security boundary. Nofollow ne fait pas prevent utilisateurs, robots d’exploration, or autre sites from reaching a public URL.

“The page is indexed even though its link is nofollowed”

Que result is attendu: nofollow n’est pas noindex.

1. Confirmer the goal. Si the destination doit stay out of search, serve noindex on the destination and garder it crawlable. Si it is confidential, exiger authentication.
2. Inventory discovery paths. Vérifier XML sitemaps, navigation, canonicals, redirections, external liens, and autre internal anchors. Quelconque of les peut expose l’URL independently of the nofollowed lien.
3. Confirmer qui nofollow vous utilisé. An anchor rel valeur affecte un lien. A robots meta nofollow valeur addresses liens on the source page. Neither changements the destination’s index directive.
4. Inspect the destination itself. Vérifier its status, canonical, robots meta, X-Robots-Tag, and robots.txt accès plutôt que debugging seulement the source lien.
5. Autoriser processing temps. A newly ajouté noindex takes effect après the search engine recrawls and processes the destination.

Audit accidental internal nofollow

Run ce in DevTools Console to classify liens on the rendered page:

const links = [...document.querySelectorAll('a[href]')].map((a) => {
  const url = new URL(a.href, location.href);
  const rel = new Set(a.rel.toLowerCase().split(/\s+/).filter(Boolean));
  return {
    text: a.textContent.trim().replace(/\s+/g, ' '),
    href: url.href,
    internal: url.origin === location.origin,
    nofollow: rel.has('nofollow'),
    sponsored: rel.has('sponsored'),
    ugc: rel.has('ugc'),
  };
});

console.table(links.filter((link) => link.internal && link.nofollow));
console.table(links.filter((link) => !link.internal));

The premier table trouve lien internes que deserve manual examiner. The second lets vous vérifier si chaque outbound relationship is classified truthfully. Ne faites pas mechanically ajouter or supprimer rel valeurs fondé on domain alone; sponsorship and utilisateur generation are editorial facts the DOM ne peut pas infer.

TL;DR — rel="nofollow" is a per-link rel valeur meaning “I don’t vouch pour / don’t vouloir to réussir signals to ce lien.” Introduced in 2005 contre comment spam. PageRank sculpting with it has been dead since 2009 (Cutts). Since Sept 10, 2019 it’s a hint pour ranking, and since March 1, 2020 a hint pour exploration and indexation — ne … plus a strict directive. It is pas noindex and fait pas reliably block exploration: a nofollowed page peut encore be crawled/indexé via sitemaps, autre sites’ liens, or votre propre follow liens. Utiliser sponsored pour paid liens, ugc pour user-generated, and vous peut combine valeurs (rel="ugc sponsored").

Evidence for this claim Google recommends rel=nofollow when other qualification values do not apply and the publisher would rather Google not associate with or crawl the linked page from that site. Scope: Per-link Google guidance; nofollow is a hint, not a guaranteed crawl block. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Qualify outbound links Evidence for this claim A link-level nofollow is not a reliable way to prevent the destination URL from being crawled or indexed. Scope: Google can discover a URL through other links, sitemaps, or sources; use page-level controls for indexing. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Robots meta tag

Ce que rel="nofollow" en réalité is

rel="nofollow" is un possible valeur of the HTML lien rel attribute, définir on an individual <a> element:

<a rel="nofollow" href="https://example.com">Example</a>

It indique moteur de recherches vous don’t endorse the lié page and don’t vouloir to réussir ranking signals to it. It’s a per-link qualification — pas une page-level setting, and pas an index contrôler. Google’s propre framing puts it as the catch-all of the three link-qualification valeurs: utiliser it “quand autre valeurs don’t appliquer, and you’d plutôt Google pas associate votre site with, or explorer the lié page from, votre site.”

A short history of nofollow

2005 — the anti-spam origin. Google introduced rel="nofollow" in January 2005, jointly with autre moteur de recherches, specifically to combat comment and guestbook spam. Spammers were dropping liens everywhere to manipulate rankings; nofollow let publishers dire “I’m not vouching for this link.”

2009 — PageRank sculpting dies. Pour a pendant que, SEOs nofollowed lien internes to essayer to “sculpt” PageRank — funneling popularité des liens toward lune pages ils cared à propos de. Matt Cutts, alors head of Google’s webspam team, killed que in 2009: nofollowing an lien interne ne … plus redistributes que link’s share to lune page’s autre liens. The equity simplement evaporates. His blunt advice encore holds — pour internal liens, “whenever you’re linking autour dans votre site: don’t utiliser nofollow. Simplement go ahead and lien to whatever stuff.” Si you’re encore nofollowing lien internes to “save” PageRank, arrêter; it hasn’t worked in over a decade.

2019–2020 — from directive to hint. Ce is the modifier que reshaped the whole topic. In a September 10, 2019 announcement, Danny Sullivan and Gary Illyes reclassified nofollow from a strict directive into a hint — something Google généralement honors but may choisir to override. Two dates matter:

• September 10, 2019 — nofollow (and the nouveau sponsored/ugc valeurs) became hints pour ranking purposes.
• March 1, 2020 — nofollow aussi became a hint pour exploration and indexation purposes.

Google’s reasoning was que widespread nofollow utiliser was costing it utile lien signals, so a hint model lets it considérer ceux liens quand it has bon raison to. Pour la plupart sites the practical effect is petit — Google said it voudrait généralement garder treating nofollowed liens as it did avant and pas utiliser les pour ranking.

Vous don’t besoin to go back and modifier existing nofollow markup; it encore fonctionne. The nouveau sponsored and ugc valeurs are recommended pour leur spécifique cas, but they’re optional, pas mandatory.

nofollow, sponsored, and ugc — what’s the difference?

The 2019 modifier aussi introduced two plus spécifique rel valeurs. Tout three qualify a lien; ils simplement décrire pourquoi you’re pas vouching pour it:

• rel="sponsored" — paid placements, ads, and affiliate liens. Google: “Mark liens que are advertisements or paid placements (commonly appelé paid liens) with the sponsored valeur.”
• rel="ugc" — contenu généré par les utilisateurs. Google recommends “marking contenu généré par les utilisateurs (UGC) liens, tel as comments and forum posts, with the ugc valeur.”
• rel="nofollow" — the catch-all quand neither of the ci-dessus fits and you’d plutôt pas vouch pour or crawl-associate with the lien.

A decision rule:

• Paid / affiliate → sponsored
• Comments / forum posts / autre user-added liens → ugc
• Don’t vouch / don’t vouloir crawl-association, nothing sinon fits → nofollow
• Plus que un s’applique → combine les, space-separated: rel="ugc sponsored"

Que combining is legitimate and intended — a paid lien à l’intérieur user-generated content peut carry les deux valeurs. Pour the complet picture on choosing and combining sponsored/ugc — notamment the disclosure obligations que go with paid liens — voir rel=“sponsored” and rel=“ugc”.

Fait nofollow block exploration or indexation? Aucun.

Ce is the la plupart important section, parce que it’s the la plupart courant myth — and you’ll encore trouver it stated as fact in popular guides (the widely-cited Ahrefs nofollow guide, written by Joshua Hardwick, claims Google “doesn’t crawl nofollow links”; that’s the chose to correct, pas Patrick’s view).

Here’s the reality, straight from Google’s docs: “Remember que the lié pages may be trouvé via autre signifie, tel as sitemaps or liens from autre sites, and thus ils may encore be crawled.” Nofollow is a hint à propos de qui liens to follow — pas a wall autour the destination.

So garder ces three jobs separate:

• rel="nofollow" (lien level) = “I don’t vouch for this link.” Doesn’t garder the target out of Google.
• noindex (page level) = garde une page out of the index. Ce is the outil pour “I don’t want this page in search.”
• robots.txt disallow (explorer level) = arrête bots from fetching une URL. (And remarque: a robots-blocked page peut encore be indexé si autre pages lien to it — même crawling-vs-indexing distinction.)

Si vous nofollow every lien to une page but it’s in votre sitemap, or un autre site liens to it, or you’ve got un follow lien to it elsewhere, Google peut encore explorer and index it. nofollow n’est pas noindex. Ce is exactly pourquoi nofollow sits on the boundary entre the lien world and the exploration and indexation world: it’s a hint into the explorer pipeline, pas a contrôler over it.

Link-level rel="nofollow" vs the robots meta tag nofollow

Ces obtenir confused constantly parce que ils share a word. Ils have complètement différent scope:

• rel="nofollow" is on a unique <a> element — it qualifies que un lien.
• The robots meta tag nofollow valeur — <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> (or the X-Robots-Tag: nofollow HTTP header) — is a page-level instruction telling robots d’exploration pas to follow quelconque of the liens on que page.

Un lien versus every lien on lune page. Si someone dit “I added nofollow,” it’s worth asking qui un ils mean — ils behave very differently. (The robots meta tag’s nofollow valeur lives alongside noindex and snippet contrôle; it’s partie of the broader robots meta tag story.)

Do nofollow liens aider SEO?

Don’t treat “nofollow” as “worthless.” A few choses are vrai at une fois:

• They’re now hints, so Google may encore considérer les in some cas.
• Ils encore drive referral trafic — réel personnes clicking via.
• A natural backlink profile inclut nofollow liens; an all-follow profile semble unnatural.

So nofollow liens aren’t dead weight. Ils simplement shouldn’t be votre strategy pour “passing link equity.”

Quand to utiliser nofollow (and quand pas to)

Utiliser it pour:

• Ads / paid placements (préférer sponsored).
• Affiliate liens (préférer sponsored).
• Untrusted user-generated liens — comments, forums, profiles (préférer ugc).
• Outbound liens vous genuinely don’t vouloir to vouch pour.

Don’t bother:

• Lien internes — don’t nofollow les to sculpt PageRank; it doesn’t fonctionner and it simplement leaks the equity. Lien freely dans votre propre site.
• Trusted editorial outbound liens — normal références to bon sources don’t besoin nofollow.

The state of nofollow today

Quand I ran the numbers pour my study The State of Nofollow, UGC, & Sponsored Lien Attributes, the headline was how little the nouveau attributes had been adopted. Roughly 10,6% of tout backlinks à travers le sites I looked at were nofollow, and à propos de 3,6% of lien internes carried nofollow — plus élevé que it nécessite to be, donné internal nofollow ne fait pashing utile. The nouveau valeurs were barely utilisé: seulement autour 0,44% of referring domains utilisé rel="ugc" and à propos de 0,01% utilisé rel="sponsored". La plupart of the ugc adoption came from WordPress, qui ajouté it in version 5,3. The takeaway: sans CMS platforms applying ces automatically, adoption of sponsored and ugc stays low — la plupart of the web is encore on plain nofollow.

Pour the broader picture of how head and link-level signals fit ensemble, voir the meta tags hub; pour how a hint flows into discovery, voir exploration and indexation.

AI summary

A condensed prendre on the Avancé version:

• rel="nofollow" is a per-link rel valeur: “I don’t vouch pour / don’t vouloir to réussir ranking signals to ce lien.” It’s définir on individual <a> elements.
• History: introduced January 2005 to fight comment/guestbook spam. PageRank sculpting with nofollow has been dead since 2009 (Matt Cutts) — the equity evaporates, it doesn’t reroute.
• Directive → hint: as of Sept 10, 2019 it’s a hint pour ranking; as of March 1, 2020 a hint pour exploration and indexation. Ne … plus a strict directive. Existing nofollow markup encore fonctionne — aucun besoin to modifier it.
• Three valeurs: sponsored (paid/ads/affiliate), ugc (user-generated), nofollow (catch-all). Combine les space-separated quand plus que un s’applique: rel="ugc sponsored".
• The big myth: nofollow fait pas block exploration or indexation and is pas noindex. Google: lié pages “may still be crawled” via sitemaps, autre sites’ liens, etc. To supprimer une page utiliser noindex; to contrôler exploration utiliser robots.txt.
• Link-level rel="nofollow" ≠ robots meta nofollow: un lien vs every lien on une page.
• nofollow liens aren’t worthless: they’re hints, drive referral trafic, and garder a natural lien profile. Don’t nofollow internal or trusted editorial liens.
• Adoption: in my study of nofollow/ugc/sponsored usage, ~10,6% of backlinks were nofollow, but ugc/sponsored adoption was tiny — la plupart of the web is encore on plain nofollow.

Documentation officielle

Primary-source documentation from the moteur de recherches.

Google

• Qualify votre outbound liens to Google — the référence doc: nofollow, sponsored, and ugc, quand to utiliser chaque, and the all-important “may still be crawled” remarque. Commencer ici.
• Evolving “nofollow” — nouveau façons to identifier the nature of liens — the Sept 10, 2019 announcement (Danny Sullivan & Gary Illyes) que introduced sponsored/ugc and the hint model, with the two go-live dates.
• Block search indexation with noindex — the correct outil pour keeping une page out of Google (ce que nofollow is pas).
• Introduction to robots.txt — explorer contrôler, the autre chose nofollow is pas.

Bing / Microsoft

• Bing Webmaster Guidelines — Bing supports tout three valeurs and aussi treats les as hints, leaning on nofollow as the principal un.

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements from Google. Chaque lien is a deep lien que jumps to the quoted passage on the source page.

Google — ce que chaque valeur is pour (from “Qualify your outbound links to Google”)

• “Mark links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links) with the sponsored value.” Jump to quote
• “We recommend marking user-generated content (UGC) links, such as comments and forum posts, with the ugc value.” Jump to quote
• “Use the nofollow value when other values don’t apply, and you’d rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl the linked page from, your site.” Jump to quote
• “Links marked with these rel attributes will generally not be followed.” Jump to quote

Google — nofollow ne fait pas block exploration (the load-bearing un)

• “Remember that the linked pages may be found through other means, such as sitemaps or links from other sites, and thus they may still be crawled.” Jump to quote

Matt Cutts, Google (2009) — PageRank sculpting is dead

• “In general, whenever you’re linking around within your site: don’t use nofollow. Just go ahead and link to whatever stuff.” — Matt Cutts, alors head of Google’s webspam team. Jump to quote

The mental models

1. nofollow is a hint, pas a wall. Since 2019–2020 it’s a hint pour ranking, exploration, and indexation — Google généralement honors it but may override it, and it doesn’t seal off the destination. A nofollowed page is encore discoverable via every autre channel.

2. Three layers, three outils — garder les separate.

• Lien signal → rel="nofollow" / sponsored / ugc (don’t vouch pour a lien)
• Index contrôler → noindex (garder a page out of search)
• Explorer contrôler → robots.txt (arrêter bots fetching une URL)

Reach pour the incorrect couche and you’ll obtenir the incorrect result — la plupart souvent, nofollowing a lien expecting it to deindex une page (it won’t).

3. The “which value?” decision tree.

• Paid / ad / affiliate → sponsored
• User-generated (comment, forum, profile) → ugc
• Nothing sinon fits, don’t vouloir to vouch → nofollow
• Plus que un vrai → combine: rel="ugc sponsored"

4. Don’t sculpt. nofollowing lien internes to funnel PageRank hasn’t worked since 2009 — the equity evaporates. Lien freely à l’intérieur votre propre site.

5. Lien level vs page level. rel="nofollow" is un lien. The robots meta tag nofollow valeur is every lien on lune page. Différent scope; don’t conflate les.

nofollow vs sponsored vs ugc vs noindex vs disallow

Ce que chaque contrôler en réalité fait

Clé reminders

• nofollow ≠ noindex. A nofollowed page peut encore be crawled and indexé via sitemaps, autre sites’ liens, or votre propre follow liens.
• Valeurs combine — space-separated: rel="ugc sponsored", rel="ugc nofollow".
• Existing nofollow encore fonctionne — vous don’t have to migrate old markup to sponsored/ugc.
• Don’t nofollow lien internes to sculpt PageRank — dead since 2009; the equity evaporates.
• Link-level rel="nofollow" (un lien) is pas lune page-level robots meta nofollow (every lien on lune page).

Rapide HTML

<!-- catch-all -->
<a rel="nofollow" href="…">…</a>
<!-- paid / ad -->
<a rel="sponsored" href="…">…</a>
<!-- user comment / forum post -->
<a rel="ugc" href="…">…</a>
<!-- a paid link inside user content -->
<a rel="ugc sponsored" href="…">…</a>

Ressources utiles

My connexe writing

• The State of Nofollow, UGC, & Sponsored Lien Attributes — my original-research study on how beaucoup (or how little) the web en réalité adopted ces attributes.

Official

• Google’s Qualify votre outbound liens to Google — the référence doc pour nofollow/sponsored/ugc.
• Google’s Evolving “nofollow” — the 2019 announcement of the hint model and the nouveau attributes.
• Matt Cutts on PageRank sculpting — the 2009 post que ended internal-nofollow sculpting.

From autour the industry

• r/TechSEO — the community pour “why is my nofollowed page still indexed” debugging.
• Google’s nouveau treatment of nofollow liens has arrived (Moteur de recherche Land, Mar 1 2020) — confirms the March 1, 2020 exploration/indexation hint go-live date from Danny Sullivan and Gary Illyes.
• Google Explorer and Indexation Mettre à jour: nofollow Becomes a Hint (Moteur de recherche Journal) — detailed coverage of the March 2020 hint modifier with practical implications.
• Pourquoi Google Turned Nofollow Into a Hint (Moteur de recherche Journal) — explique Google’s reasoning: widespread nofollow utiliser was costing Google utile lien signals.
• PageRank Sculpting Is Dead! Long Live PageRank Sculpting! (Moteur de recherche Land) — the definitive 2009 article on Matt Cutts’s confirmation que internal nofollow sculpting ne … plus fonctionne.
• Bing supports rel=sponsored & rel=ugc (Moteur de recherche Land) — Bing’s confirmation que it supports tout three valeurs as hints.

Stats worth citing

From my study The State of Nofollow, UGC, & Sponsored Lien Attributes:

• ~10,6% of tout backlinks were nofollow — nofollow is courant à travers the web. Source
• ~3,6% of lien internes carried nofollow — plus élevé que it devrait be, since internal nofollow ne fait pashing utile (aucun PageRank sculpting since 2009). Source
• ugc/sponsored adoption was tiny — seulement ~0,44% of referring domains utilisé rel="ugc" and ~0,01% utilisé rel="sponsored", with la plupart ugc coming from WordPress (ajouté in 5,3). Sans CMS defaults, adoption stays low. Source

Journal des modifications