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What is the difference between NoFollow and DoFollow?

by DateinaDash
32 replies
  • SEO
    • |
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!
#difference #dofollow #nofollow
  • Profile picture of the author UMS
    They are two terms that people endlessly like to argue over. :rolleyes:

    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.
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  • Profile picture of the author jackwebson
    When it comes to SEO do follow backlinks are the ones that are essential than no follow backlinks.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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..
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  • Profile picture of the author Abdul Jabbar
    No-Follow is still count. if your link is relevant then it doesn't matter at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author DateinaDash
    Thanks - but how would you know what link is a dofollow or a nofollow how exactly are they distinguishable?
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  • Profile picture of the author 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
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author prcys
    Banned
    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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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    • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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.
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  • Profile picture of the author 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?
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  • Profile picture of the author pnisbet
    So much confusion in all the above comments - what is really true? I believe nofollow means no PR passed on, but Google does follow the link. Do follow is not necessary since links default to this if the nofollow attribute is not used.

    That's my reading after listening to Matt Cutts.
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    • Profile picture of the author connorbringas
      I didnt read all the responses, but I will give my two cents.

      Basically, do follow are links that google crawls and counts toward your websites domain and page authority.

      No follow links are links that google crawls and doesnt count as much toward your domain and page authority.

      Many will argue that no follow links dont count at all. However, look in your webmaster tools account after you add a no follow link and see if its in there. Yes, yes it is in there indeed. Meaning, google counts no follow links-obviously not as strong as follow links.
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    • Profile picture of the author khtm
      Yes, because Matt Cutts is always 100% honest about how Google works. He has no ulterior motive at all :rolleyes:

      Originally Posted by pnisbet View Post

      So much confusion in all the above comments - what is really true? I believe nofollow means no PR passed on, but Google does follow the link. Do follow is not necessary since links default to this if the nofollow attribute is not used.

      That's my reading after listening to Matt Cutts.
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  • Profile picture of the author Toyota Hilux Dealer
    A lot of webdeveloper pages are on page 1 because of the link that is supposed to be no-follow. Google is not only following it, it is ranking it on page 1. No follow don't count when it comes to pagerank but it certainly has an impact on SERPs
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  • Profile picture of the author HKSEO Jonbones
    Think about it this way--a natural backlink profile ( one that has not been manufactured, but all the links are naturally occurring ) why would there only be links that can help the site out? No follow links would be added naturally to a site over time--the whole point of building links is to make the backlink profile appear natural, when infact it has been manufactured to look that way.

    So why wouldn't you include nofollow links?

    If you only have 'good' links ( the ones that everyone knows that google is looking for, but none of the links that "don't matter at all" ), do you think that would look like a natural backlink profile?

    That is the definition of over optimization--only using what can help you, and not having enough different material to warrant a "diversified backlink portfolio"

    The whole idea is to make the backlinks look natural. No follows get added naturally. If you only place the "good link types" you're asking for a manual review.
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  • Profile picture of the author Toyota Hilux Dealer
    Agree with you Jonbones. After Penguin it is essential that you dilute your do-follow links with no-follow links and eventually they both help in raising you in SERPs.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bombora
    This has been pretty well covered in the replies here already, so not having to go into details about the nofollow attribute and the fact that dofollow is just a term (not actual HTML code, it is simply the absence of nofollow) I will say that you should not completely disregard a possible backlink just because of the nofollow attribute.

    Not only do search engines like bing and yahoo! still exist and not value this attribute at all but through tested I have ranked brand new sites with 100% nofollow links which leads me to believe it is simply one of many factors such as:
    Contextual relevance
    Anchor text
    OBLs on page/site
    PR/Authority of Page/Site
    Niche relevance of site
    etc.

    And even if they weren't given weight the last thing you want to do is look unnatural in your overall linking campaign, having 100% dofollow links would look very suspicious.
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    • Profile picture of the author HKSEO Jonbones
      Originally Posted by Bombora View Post

      ...the last thing you want to do is look unnatural in your overall linking campaign, having 100% dofollow links would look very suspicious.
      this is the hardest part to get people to understand..." but why would I want a link that I'm not going to get anything from?"

      BECAUSE IT WOULD BE THERE NATURALLY
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  • Profile picture of the author kiddoman
    Originally Posted by DateinaDash View Post

    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!
    If you want to build your backlinks, dofollow links help you more while nofollow is useless.
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  • Profile picture of the author milina788
    The major difference between No Follow and Do Follow backlinks is that major search engine robots does not indexes the No Follow backlinks but in case of Do Follow they indexes them. While in these days, to get consistent ranking in major search engines you have to get both No Follow and Do Follow backlinks because it represents the natural link building in front of search engine bots.
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  • Profile picture of the author appliedvisual
    Do Follow is better for SEO and SERPS but no follow shouldn't be ignored because they still bring targeted traffic. For example, if you commented on a high traffic blog or site that was no follow, it wouldn't help your SERPS but with informative comments people are likely to check out your site.
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