Nofollow links: Definition, origin and relevance for SEO

Why are there nofollow links?

Google and other search engines use links as important ranking signals. In this context, they are mainly used in so-called backlink building. This involves the promotion of links from other websites to your own pages. In the course of this, link quality (link juice) is passed on, which can lead to the page that receives such a link rising in the rankings.

The nofollow tag was introduced by Google to combat the abuse of these processes by blog comment spam. With the increasing popularity of blogs, link spam there also increased massively. The spammers left masses of links to their websites in the comments.

This led to two major problems:

• Firstly, the spam pages often received optimal rankings on Google - in contrast, really high-quality pages were less visible in the search results.
• This SEO tactic worked extremely well - and blog comment spam quickly got out of control.

In 2005, the nofollow tag was created in response to these developments.

Are nofollow links important for SEO?

According to Google, nofollow links do not pass on link juice. They are "normally" not followed. They are therefore less relevant - at least in link building.

"Less" because studies by various SEOs have found that Google sometimes does follow such links and they can actually have a certain influence on the ranking.

In addition, nofollow links have other SEO effects. If they are placed sensibly, they always have the potential to provide website visitors with guidance. They can also direct people to interesting websites or draw attention to new topics within online presences. This increases the number of visitors and/or the length of stay. These are definitely relevant factors for the ranking.