What dofollow and nofollow mean
A normal link, with no special rel attribute, is called "dofollow". It tells search engines the linking page vouches for the destination, and it can pass ranking credit. Adding rel="nofollow" asks search engines not to treat the link as an endorsement. There is no actual dofollow attribute; it is just the absence of nofollow.
Since 2019 Google has two more values. rel="sponsored" marks paid or affiliate links and rel="ugc" marks user-generated content like comments and forum posts. All three are now hints rather than strict rules, but in practice links marked this way pass little or no value.
When to check
- Before you pay for or pitch a listing. Many directories and launch sites mark every outbound link nofollow. That still brings visitors, but not authority. Check a few existing listings first.
- After you earn a backlink. Confirm the link to you is followed, points at the right URL and uses sensible anchor text. Search for your domain in the filter.
- On your own pages. Make sure paid and affiliate links are marked sponsored, and that you are not nofollowing your own internal links by accident.
Page-level nofollow
A <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> tag nofollows every link on the page at once, whatever each link's rel says. The checker warns you when it finds one.
Reading the results
Links are split into internal (same site, ignoring www) and external. Internal nofollow links are almost always a mistake; they waste crawl paths on your own site. External dofollow links are where the value flows. Pair this with the Domain Rating checker to judge whether a followed link from that site is worth having, and the backlink value calculator to estimate it.