What is the difference between NoFollow and DoFollow?

[DateinaDash]

Hey guys,

Sorry i'm new to this SEO business - I keep hearing about these two terms, can someone explain them and which is better to have?

Thanks!

[UMS]

They are two terms that people endlessly like to argue over.

If you want to read the gory details see

nofollow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In brief, don't worry too much about it. Just make sure you get a variety of backlinks from a range of different sources.

Too many people fret over whether a backlink is nofollow or not. Better to just have the backlink than not at all.

[jackwebson]

When it comes to SEO do follow backlinks are the ones that are essential than no follow backlinks.

[UMS]

Originally Posted by jackwebson

When it comes to SEO do follow backlinks are the ones that are essential than no follow backlinks.

You mispelt "essential" when you meant "better".

[dracoboar]

Originally Posted by UMS

You mispelt "essential" when you meant "better".

UMS, to my understanding no follow links pass neither reputation nor juice, so for SEO purposes would that not make them useless?

[EugeneS]

Actually the search engines handle nofollow differently. Google will not follow the link, assign PR to it, or give it weight in its algorithm. Yahoo will follow the link but give it no weight in their algorithm. MSN says they won't give the link any value but it is hard to confirm exactly what they're doing.

[UMS]

Originally Posted by dracoboar

UMS, to my understanding no follow links pass neither reputation nor juice, so for SEO purposes would that not make them useless?

Common myth/misunderstanding. No-follow links still count.

[NavalGogia]

The major difference between NoFollow and DoFollow is in the case of Nofollow link Google not follow this link and also not given any weightage to the same link.

[dracoboar]

Originally Posted by UMS

Common myth/misunderstanding. No-follow links still count.

not being snarky or sarcastic here but if it doesnt pass link juice, nor reputation exactly what does it count for?

[Kevin pitt]

do follow is that which Link is a hyperlink that provides search engines to pass along then it's page rank affects to an outbound link.No follow Link is exactly the opposite to do follow. It is a hyperlink and it removes the ability to pass on it's page rank affects to the other sites.

[krishacetravison]

Actually, the word "dofollow" is just a word used to substitute in the absence of "nofollow". It's an endless debate from different people with different point of views about it..

[Abdul Jabbar]

No-Follow is still count. if your link is relevant then it doesn't matter at all.

[DateinaDash]

Thanks - but how would you know what link is a dofollow or a nofollow how exactly are they distinguishable?

[hammertorch]

when you open a website page, press CTRL+U in your keyboard to view the source code in that page.
press CTRL+F = shortcut for find
then type the word nofollow
if there is nofollow in the source code page then the site is a nofollow site

[BarryOnline]

Not this again!

Why are people saying that nofollow links count in terms of helping a page/site rank?

They don't!

Why do you think Google created the nofollow tag?

Quote from Google:

"Nofollow" provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines "Don't follow links on this page" or "Don't follow this specific link." We don't follow them. This means that Google does not transfer PageRank or anchor text across these links. Essentially, using nofollow causes us to drop the target links from our overall graph of the web.

Google does not follow or count nofollow links, hence the name NOfollow, instead of DOfollow.

For example, if you buy a nice high PR dofollow link it will help you rank, but add the nofollow attribute and the link becomes useless. It's dropped from Googles link graph, does not pass page rank or anchor text.

DOFOLLOW:

Pass page rank
Pass anchor text
Add to link graph
Increase SERP

NOFOLLOW:

Don't pass page rank
Don't pass anchor text
Don't add to link graph
Don't increase SERP

The nofollow tag was Google's answer to reduce the ability people have in gaming their algorithm.

[prcys]

When you find such attribute like rel = "nofollow" then know that the link is the nofollow and there is no anything like this when dofollow links.
Nofollow and dofollow both the links be helpful to get the more traffic to the site. Just the difference is that nofollow links can not pass the link juice or can not assign the rank weightage of other site to your site.

[khtm]

Wow, there's so much misinformation in this thread. I'd like to clear a few things up:

1. The nofollow attribute was originally intended to reduce spam, as links using this tag would not be included in PageRank calculations.
2. It eventually became an epidemic of many top-tier sites and blogging platforms by default using the nofollow attribute on ALL external links.
3. Google realized that since more and more sites were using the nofollow attribute, their ranking algorithm was becoming less and less effective (think...what's the point of nofollow if EVERYONE uses it?).
4. There's been many independent studies in the past year or so that have proven that a mixture of nofollow and dofollow links are MORE effective in ranking than ONLY dofollow links (if you think about it, this makes perfect sense, as it looks very suspicious and unnatural if all your links are dofollow). Here's one example: Correlation Data for SEO and Social Media Analysis - Part 2 - Whiteboard Friday | SEOmoz.

Summary: a healthy mix of nofollow and dofollow links is ideal.

[johnmayers]

<NOFOLLOW> is a value that can be assigned to the [REL] HTML attribute that tells the search engines to discount this link. It was designed originally to allow web site owners (primarily Blogs and Forums) the option to identify spam or potential spam links and assign this attribute so that the search engines would not index the link and therefore not pass any “link juice” or authority to the linked site from the source site.

<DOFOLLOW>:

There is no specific HTML attribute for this link. This is the link we as SEO’s and web site owners strive for every day for the sites we are working on. This link passes actual “link juice” from the originating site to the linked to site. For example, if you own a site that is well established, has good traffic and a decent Google PageRank your “link juice” will be much higher than a newly launched site.

[clairsmith]

Dofollow link pass link juice to your website from the website you get the back link, it is helpful to increase page rank of your website. There is not any special tag or attribute use to define dofollow link it is normal hyper link.

Nofollow links are not passing any link juice to website. It is only helpful to increase traffic as these links click by users and they will redirect to your website. We use rel attribute to define nofollow link.

[Rache]

Six years ago, no follow links used to have value. They are still useful today for direct traffic purposes, but in terms of ranking and link juice, go for do follow communities. I used a widget called Quirk SearchStatus to determine whether I'm working on a do follow or a no follow community.

[harrymarkkss]

Do follow sites are the sites in forum posting into which a person may post his comment along with the signature link and if approved then his website gets crawled over. Crawling in the sense that traffic visits his website whereas no follow sites are the sites in which when a person comments in the forum then there are very less chances that traffic will visit his website, and even if his comment is approved then he will not find his signature link through which the traffic visits the website. No follow sites appear pink in color.

[sackboy127]

Nofollow links still have value (although not as much as dofollows), and you need them for link diversification. How natural do you think a website with only DF links looks in Google's eyes?

[katherineeobryan]

When you link your site to a do-follow site the html link code will be a regular anchor text html link. In the case of a no-follow the no follow html tag will be added within the link and you would not get a link back to your site from this site.