Dofollow and nofollow are the two ways a link tells a search engine whether to trust it. A dofollow link passes “weight” (a link signal) to the target page and affects its rankings. Nofollow is an “I don’t vouch for this link” marker, and as a rule it passes no direct weight. Since 2019 Google has treated nofollow as a hint rather than a strict directive, so the line between the two types has softened, and a healthy link profile contains both.
Key points in 30 seconds
- Dofollow passes weight and directly affects rankings; nofollow tells the search engine not to vouch for the link.
- Since 2019, nofollow is a hint for Google, not a directive: Google may count such a link, but it doesn’t have to.
- Two more specific attributes were added: rel=”sponsored” (ads, paid placements) and rel=”ugc” (user-generated content).
- A dofollow-only profile looks unnatural and raises the risk of a penalty.
- There is no exact norm, but a noticeable share of nofollow (roughly 20–40%) makes a profile look natural.
How dofollow differs from nofollow
Technically, dofollow is a regular link with no special attributes: <a href=”…”>. Nofollow adds the rel=”nofollow” attribute: <a href=”…” rel=”nofollow”>. The first tells the search engine, “I trust this source, feel free to pass weight to it.” The second says something closer to, “Here’s a link, but don’t quote me on it.”
Nofollow is set by default wherever the site owner doesn’t control who publishes what: in comments, on forums, in social media profiles, on Wikipedia, in user-generated content sections. Historically, this was an anti-spam measure. If every blog post attracts a dozen comments selling “cheap replica watches,” the least you can do is keep them from shaping search results. For more on the kinds of links out there, see our article on types of backlinks.
Here’s a detail people often miss: there is no “dofollow” attribute in HTML. It’s just the informal name for a link without a restrictive rel value. Someone wrote rel=”dofollow” in the code? Search engines ignore that value, and the link behaves like a normal one. What does matter is that the link is a proper <a> tag. In its guidance on crawlable links, Google stresses that it reliably treats an <a> element with an href attribute as a link, and that anchor text should be descriptive, relevant and reasonably concise.
What it looks like in code: examples
A regular (dofollow) link that can pass weight:
<a href="https://example.com/">flower delivery service</a>
A link the site doesn’t vouch for:
<a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">example.com</a>
A paid or advertising placement:
<a href="https://example.com/" rel="sponsored">partner offer</a>
A link inside a user’s forum post, often with several values at once:
<a href="https://example.com/" rel="ugc nofollow" target="_blank">details here</a>
Two things worth noticing. First, rel values can be combined with a space, so “ugc nofollow” or “sponsored nofollow” is perfectly normal. Second, target=”_blank” and rel=”noopener” have nothing to do with passing weight. They only control how the page opens and protect the originating tab.
What changed after Google moved to the hint model
For a long time nofollow was strict: Google ignored such links completely in ranking and often didn’t even crawl them. In September 2019 that changed, and two new attributes arrived, rel=”sponsored” and rel=”ugc”. At the same time, Google announced that starting in March 2020 it would treat nofollow as a hint rather than a strict directive. The official announcement is the Google Search Central post “Evolving nofollow: new ways to identify the nature of links”: sponsored, ugc and nofollow are now all treated as hints rather than hard commands.
So what does that mean in practice? Google can now use nofollow links as one of many signals, for example to better understand the structure of the web and its context. But “can” doesn’t mean “must,” and you still shouldn’t count on nofollow passing weight directly. These links haven’t lost their value. It simply lies somewhere else: traffic, brand awareness and a natural-looking profile.
| Attribute | When to use it | How Google treats it |
| dofollow (no rel) | A natural editorial link you trust | Passes weight, affects rankings |
| rel=”nofollow” | A link you don’t vouch for | A hint; weight usually isn’t passed |
| rel=”sponsored” | Ads, affiliate and paid placements | A hint; marks a paid relationship |
| rel=”ugc” | User-generated content: comments, forums | A hint; the link was created by users |
What Google actually recommends for rel=”nofollow”, “ugc” and “sponsored”
Google’s help page “Qualify your outbound links to Google” spells it out: rel=”ugc” is recommended for links within comments and forum posts, rel=”sponsored” for ads and paid placements, and rel=”nofollow” for cases where you don’t want to associate your site with the page you link to. In other words, these attributes describe the nature of the relationship between sites, not the “strength” of the link.
If you’re on the receiving end, the takeaway is simple: a ugc link from a forum is not “bad” or a “penalty link.” It’s just an honest label saying a user wrote that content. Most modern forum engines and CMSs add these attributes automatically, so in a profile they read as an ordinary trace of real discussions.
Do nofollow links pass value? An honest answer
Short version: not guaranteed, possibly partially. Since 2019 Google has reserved the right to use nofollow, ugc and sponsored as hints. No one outside Google can say exactly when such a link will be counted and when it won’t, so any “percentage of weight passed” by nofollow is guesswork. If someone quotes you a precise figure, ask how they got read access to Google’s codebase. Don’t build a strategy on the idea that nofollow links “pass a little.” Don’t write them off as useless either.
What nofollow links definitely deliver:
- Referral traffic. Someone who clicks a link in a helpful forum answer neither knows nor cares what its rel value is. They arrive with a ready-made need.
- Brand awareness. A mention in a relevant discussion works like a recommendation, even when the link is nofollow.
- A natural-looking profile. A mixed profile resembles those of sites people talk about on their own, unprompted.
- Page discovery. A link helps a search engine find a new page, although a sitemap and the URL Inspection tool are more reliable for fast indexing.
The main channel for passing weight in Google is still dofollow links. In its guide to ranking systems, Google explicitly lists link analysis systems and PageRank among its core systems, so quality dofollow links from relevant, active sites remain the backbone of link building. Industry guides take a similar view, for example Ahrefs’ overview of nofollow links.
Why a dofollow-only profile looks unnatural
A natural link profile builds up where real people talk about a site: in discussions, comments, forums and social media. Most of those are nofollow links. When 100% of a site’s links are dofollow, algorithms read it as a clear sign that the links were placed manually or bought. A “too perfect” profile like that becomes a footprint Google uses to detect manipulation. The web doesn’t link that tidily to anyone, not even Wikipedia.
Looking natural matters more than “maximum weight.” When a profile mixes dofollow links, nofollow links and unlinked brand mentions, it looks like the site earns attention organically, and algorithms trust it more. For a broader view of how link work is organized, read our cornerstone guide what is link building.
How many forum links are actually dofollow: our data
There’s a popular myth that “all forum links are nofollow, so crowd links are pointless.” We decided to test it on a large sample rather than the three forums everybody already knows.
From our practice
In our check of 16.5 thousand forums in October 2026, among the 8,508 forums where we could inspect threads, 68% had no external links at all in the threads we checked: moderators either remove them or don’t let them through. Among the 2,765 forums that do have external links, the picture looks like this: dofollow on 49%, nofollow/ugc on 32%, mixed on 10%, and links via a redirect on 8%. We also looked at signatures separately: of 1,611 forums with visible signatures, 43% allow links in signatures, and 48% of those are dofollow.
These numbers point to two conclusions. First, forum links are not necessarily nofollow: on roughly half of the sites that allow external links, they’re regular links. Second, there aren’t many such sites, and even fewer that are active, on-topic and sensibly moderated. That’s why with forum links the choice of donor is what matters, while the dofollow share settles at a natural level on its own, much like on the real web.
| Forum link type | Share (forums with external links) | What it means for your profile |
| dofollow | 49% | Can pass weight if the site is active and relevant |
| nofollow / ugc | 32% | Traffic, mentions, natural look |
| Mixed | 10% | The attribute depends on the section, user status or link position |
| Via redirect | 8% | Depends on how the redirect is implemented; don’t count on weight |
A normal dofollow to nofollow ratio
There is no universal norm, because the ratio depends on the niche. Rather than chasing a number, analyze the link profiles of the top 10 competitors for your queries and use their median as a benchmark. If you need a rough guide, a healthy profile is usually 60–80% dofollow and 20–40% nofollow.
Crowd links from forums and discussions naturally add nofollow diversity and real traffic to a profile, so they balance out one overloaded with “clean” dofollow links. If you build links systematically, plan this ratio in advance. That’s exactly what we do as part of our link building services.
How to calculate the ratio for your own site
- Export the list of links to your site from a backlink tool and filter by attribute (dofollow / nofollow / ugc / sponsored).
- Count shares by referring domain, not just by number of links: one site with a thousand sitewide footer links skews the stats.
- Do the same for 5–10 competitors ranking at the top for your key queries and find the median.
- Compare. Noticeably more dofollow than your niche? Plan your next placements with a larger share of natural nofollow/ugc sources. If it’s the other way round, add quality dofollow links from relevant sites.
The same logic applies to anchors, so analyze the attribute and the link text together. You can check your anchor distribution with our free anchor text analyzer.
How to check whether a link is dofollow or nofollow
There are four ways, from the most accurate to the fastest:
- Browser developer tools. Right-click the link, choose “Inspect” and look at the <a> tag. If it has rel=”nofollow”, “ugc” or “sponsored”, it isn’t a regular link. This is the most accurate method because you see the real DOM after scripts have run.
- Page source. Ctrl+U (Cmd+Option+U on Mac) and search for your domain. Handy, but some forums add rel or rewrite links with JavaScript, so the source and the DOM can differ.
- Browser extensions that highlight nofollow links right on the page. Good for quickly scanning dozens of pages.
- Backlink tools (Ahrefs, Semrush and others) show the attribute for every link they find and let you filter your profile. Keep in mind their databases update with a delay.
Don’t forget to check whether the link is direct. If the href points to something like /go.php?url=… or /redirect/…, it goes through the forum’s internal redirect, and how a search engine treats it depends on how that redirect is implemented. The Links report in Google Search Console shows which sites link to you and with what anchor text, but it doesn’t display the rel attribute, so you’ll need the methods above to check attributes. To vet a donor site before placement, use our donor site checker.
Dofollow vs nofollow: comparison table
| Criterion | Dofollow | Nofollow / ugc / sponsored |
| Markup | <a href=”…”> with no restrictive rel | <a href=”…” rel=”nofollow”> (or ugc / sponsored) |
| Passes weight | Yes, the main source of link signals | Not guaranteed; Google may use it as a hint |
| Referral traffic | Yes | Yes, equally |
| Brand mentions | Yes | Yes |
| Role in the profile | The core that influences rankings | Natural look and diversity |
| Typical places | Editorial articles, some forums, directories, signatures | Comments, social media, Wikipedia, some forums, ads |
| Risk | Too many identical dofollow links with commercial anchors look manipulative | Safe in themselves; risk depends on donor quality |
Do you need nofollow links on purpose?
Yes. You don’t get them for weight; they serve other purposes: referral traffic from active platforms, brand mentions, profile diversity and a natural look. Avoiding nofollow links is a mistake, because a site without them looks suspiciously “sterile,” like a show home nobody has ever lived in. The right strategy is not to choose between types but to combine them.
Common dofollow and nofollow mistakes
- Rejecting a donor just because it’s nofollow. An active, relevant discussion with a ugc link often brings more value than a dofollow link on an abandoned forum whose last visitor was probably Googlebot.
- Chasing 100% dofollow. Such a profile looks artificial. On top of that, Google’s spam policies define link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily to manipulate rankings, including buying or selling links for ranking purposes and using automated programs to create links.
- Commercial anchors on every dofollow link. The attribute doesn’t protect you from over-optimization: exact-match anchors in most of your links remain a risk regardless of rel.
- Adding nofollow to internal links to “sculpt” weight. It doesn’t work as a way to control internal link equity and only makes crawling your site harder.
- Disavowing nofollow links. They don’t pass guaranteed weight anyway and do no harm; disavow is meant for different situations.
- Not checking the attribute after placement. Forums change their settings and moderators edit posts. A report with the URL of every placement lets you spot-check that each link is still there and what rel it has.
Which links should you really stay away from? We cover that in our guide to toxic backlinks. You’ll also find a comparison of attribute approaches in Semrush’s guide to nofollow vs follow links.
From our practice
We don’t “pick” the attribute for a client: the forum decides it, and we don’t ask moderators to remove nofollow. That’s why in crowd link orders the dofollow share varies by niche and averages around half, which matches what we saw in our forum check. Clients get a report with the URL of every placement and can verify the rel of any link themselves, and we replace removed links free of charge.
Want a profile that looks natural and doesn’t raise questions with algorithms? We’ll find the right dofollow/nofollow balance for your niche. You can discuss your project and get a quote on our link building pricing page: from UAH 86 per link for orders of 20–39 down to UAH 70 per link for orders of 100 or more.
Sources
- Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links to Google (rel values nofollow, ugc, sponsored)
- Google Search Central Blog: Evolving “nofollow”: new ways to identify the nature of links (the move to the hint model)
- Google Search Central: Link best practices for Google (crawlable links and anchor text)
- Google Search Central: A guide to Google Search ranking systems (link analysis systems and PageRank)
- Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search (what Google considers link spam)
- Search Console Help: Links report
- Ahrefs: Nofollow links
- Semrush: Nofollow vs. follow links
