What is Dofollow vs. Nofollow Links?

Dofollow and nofollow describe whether a hyperlink passes ranking credit — sometimes called link equity — to the page it points to. A plain HTML link is dofollow by default: search engines follow it and treat it as a vote of confidence in the destination. Adding rel="nofollow" to a link tells search engines not to pass that credit, even though the link still works normally for anyone who clicks it.

Nofollow exists mainly to mark links a site doesn't want to vouch for: user-generated content like blog comments and forum posts, paid or sponsored links (where rel="sponsored" is now the more precise attribute), and any link a site includes without endorsing. Two related, more specific attributes — rel="sponsored" for paid placements and rel="ugc" for user-generated content — were introduced later so sites can be explicit about why a link shouldn't pass credit, rather than lumping every case under nofollow.

For backlink tracking, the dofollow/nofollow split matters because the two carry very different SEO value: a domain's dofollow backlink count is generally what search engines weigh most heavily, while nofollow links still send real referral traffic and build genuine brand awareness even though they don't directly move rankings.