Links

Nofollow link

rel=nofollow · nofollow

Definition

Nofollow link is a hyperlink marked rel="nofollow" (or ugc / sponsored) so crawlers treat it as a hint not to count it as a ranking endorsement. People still click it. Referral traffic still happens. The page can still be discovered. What you mostly lose is the vote.

Google asked for nofollow on paid links. Many newsrooms nofollow everything outbound as policy, earned or not. A nofollow from The New York Times is still a person-path and a brand mention. It is a weak SEO unit.

How it works

Inspect the live HTML, not the wish in the pitch. Note follow status in the clip sheet. Do not ask a reporter to “make it dofollow” as the first sentence of a thank-you. If the CMS default is nofollow, the editor often cannot override it.

Reclamation still matters: an unlinked mention that becomes a nofollow link is better for humans and for some retrieval than a bare name.

Worked example

Fourteen stories, nine hrefs, four of those nofollow. Report: 9 links, 5 followed, 4 nofollow, 8 unique domains. A dashboard that hides rel and shows “9 backlinks” will overstate ranking impact and understate the newspaper hits that legal actually wanted.

How it differs

A dofollow (better: a default link with no rel) can pass a ranking signal. rel="sponsored" is the paid-link label Google prefers. rel="ugc" marks comments and forums. An AI citation is not a nofollow or a follow; it is a pointer inside a generated answer.

Common errors

Counting nofollow logo farms as SEO wins. Refusing to pitch nofollow-by-policy outlets. Stuffing rel=dofollow into the pitch. Assuming nofollow means Google will not crawl the URL.

Sources