nofollowlinks

Nofollow links, sometimes referred to as nofollowlinks, are hyperlinks that include the rel="nofollow" attribute. They were introduced by Google in 2005 to combat comment spam and to give webmasters a way to link to other sites without endorsing their authority in search results. The attribute signals that the linking page does not vouch for the target page's ranking value.

How search engines treat nofollow has evolved. Historically, a nofollow link did not pass PageRank or other ranking signals to the target page, though the linked URL could still be crawled or indexed. In 2019 Google began treating nofollow as a hint for ranking rather than a strict directive, and it may use the link for crawling, indexing, or other signals. Other search engines may handle nofollow differently, but nofollow remains a widely recognized way to manage link equity.

Since 2019 Google also introduced two additional attributes to clarify link purposes: rel="sponsored" for paid or commercial links, and rel="ugc" for user-generated content. These can be used separately or together (for example, rel="nofollow sponsored" or rel="ugc"). Best practice is to apply the appropriate attribute based on the link's nature; nofollow can still be used when you do not want to imply endorsement, while sponsored and ugc provide clearer signals to search engines. Regardless, nofollow links can still drive traffic and may be indexed, but should not be relied upon to pass authority.