benefits-no-follow-links

5 Benefits of Nofollow Backlinks

Table of Contents

If you are into SEO then you must be quite familiar with “No-Follow” tag. Right ? Well this tag is something that webmasters always love to discuss and experiment with. The common questions about no-follow links that people usually asks are:

  • Does No-Follow Links contribute to a site’s SEO ?
  • Are No-Follow tags completely being ignored by Google ?
  • Should we make Nofollow links ?
  • Are there benefits of any form of No-follow backlinks ?

This list goes really long !! So let me cover all these points and clear as many doubts as you have.

What are No-Follow Links ?

Well in Simple language, Nofollow links are those which do not pass any link juice. Its just a sign for search engines saying “Don’t Follow this link” or “Don’t count this”.

To make a nofollow link, a Nofollow tag is used as shown below.

Nofollow link example:  <a href=”https://iftiseo.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Anchor Text</a>

Even though these links don’t pass any link juice they still are very much valuable and that’s what I will be covering in the next portion of this post.

Also Read: How to automatically check whether a link is Dofollow or Nofollow 

5 Core Benefits of No-Follow BackLinks

Well, yes these backlinks are not directly helping you to get any SEO benefit. But guess what, these links contribute a lot !! Many of your rankings are stable just because of Nofollow backlinks !! Confused ?? 😛 Continue reading… So here the benefits of Nofollow backlinks

1. Traffic, Traffic and Traffic

Traffic is something without which you won’t get conversions of any form (may it be ad clicks, leads, sales etc). Getting a nofollow link from any relevant source can directly help you in getting a boost of traffic.

No matter what niche you are into, a nofollow relevant link will be always helping lead to some extra traffic. I guess there’s nothing much to explain under this heading.

On one of my website, I’ve got a link from wikipedia (which is nofollow) and that single link brings me 50-200 views daily. 50-200 may sound less, but for me what matters the most is traffic quality !! I’m getting exact type of traffic that I want on that post and that single wiki link helps me get it. Moreover Guess what !! 😛 that post of mine is now ranked well on page 1. Its all due to user engagement.

Like if you get a nofollow contextual link from mashable, it is then pretty much obvious that you will be getting good amount of traffic (maybe in thousands) and thus you can expect good number of social shares which inturn will get you more traffic. Plus if your content is really good your site will get great user engagement and thus it can help you in rankings too. ALL INDIRECTLY.

2. Makes your Site Look Natural

[mks_pullquote align=”left” width=”750″ size=”18″ bg_color=”#1e73be” txt_color=”#ffffff”]Make your site look natural, Google is a zoo filled with animals [/mks_pullquote]

 

Well having a good balance of both nofollow and dofollow backlinks make your site’s link profile look natural. This keeps you safe from updates that tend to penalize you for making backlinks.

Making some nofollow backlinks can help you in diversifying your profile which can help you escape any potential Google penalty.

3. Increases DA, PA & other Metrics

Though DA, PA, Ahrefs rank, Alexa rank etc are not at all associated with Google or any other search engine, but still most of us check and try to improve these metrics and there’s nothing wrong in doing so. Advertisers for sponsored posts, listings and ad slots doesn’t have much info about your website’s statistics and therefore the only factors they rely on are Domain Authority, Page Authority, Alexa rank etc.

Though nofollow tags are not seen as a direct ranking factor by Google and other search engines, but other sites like moz, ahrefs, alexa have a complete index of all your backlinks. So having good number of nofollow backlinks (from good sites) can easily help you increase your DA, PA and other metrics.

4. Builds Authority

Nofollow contextual backlinks also helps your site gain some authority. You start getting extra referral traffic, you probably will also be getting new subscribers, your links on big websites can help your site gain trust.

But all this happens when you provide Quality in your posts !!

5. Safest tag

One more benefit/advantage of nofollow backlinks is that its safe. Well I’m calling it safe because you really dont have to worry about nofollow links that points to your site.

Well these were some really cool benefits of having nofollow backlinks !! But I’m sure you still have more questions, so keep reading 😛

Should we Make No-Follow Backlinks ?

Link building involves a lot of smart work that must keep your site standing on top even when the animals from the zoo are let free. So to have a balance just comment on other blogs related to your niche, this way you will be building relationship and at the same time gaining some no-follow links (coz most of the comment links are no-follow).

So I would let them just come naturally instead of making them.

Do you have any more queries and doubts regarding this issue ?? If yes, just ask below in comment. 🙂

About The Author
Iftekhar Ahmed
Iftekhar Ahmed is the owner of iftiSEO.com and writes on various topics like Online Earning, SEO, Blogging etc. He has worked on many blogs and also works as an SEO Analyst.

71 Responses

  1. Hye Iftekhar Ahmed. This is a very helpful article for me and I’m save this in my browsers bookmark. Thanks a lot for seo and back links guide.

  2. I was familiar with no-follow attribute of links but was unknown to the facts you shared here. This is really something fresh I learned today about no-follow links. I am currently running a blog and preferred to have all do-follow attribute till now. I’ll definitely change it right away. 🙂

  3. i think that only do follow back links works. before this article, i do not have any idea about the no follow back links. thanks for sharing information

  4. I really haven’t idea that no-follow links might be that much useful.
    Definitely they will make the website more natural.
    Really thanks for sharing.

  5. Thanks for the article. Regardless of nofollow or nofollow, a link is a link which has value. Good point about the safety factor. I think many people are too focused on ‘link quantity’ vs ‘link value’, which ignore penalties from bad links. Ideally, one would have a high quantity of high quality links and low-to-no poor quality ones.

  6. Nofollow links also have importance in SEO. Now I will also focus on building nofollow backlinks.it is such a great post about Nofollow backlink. thanks for sharing……

  7. Thanks for sharing bro

    I have one question. I have dofollow links is more than nofollow links. So its bad or good for SEO? Do i need more nofollow links on my blog site?

  8. Well, I have a question for you. Most of website don’t allow user to use keyword in the name field in comments. We use our name of this, so these kind of backlinks just help us to gain DA/PA only or they help to rank our website as well?

  9. I have seen lot of websites uses nofollow than do follow links to get to the front page of google, but it is feasible or will get penalised by google ?

  10. Commenting is really helpful to get attention from other bloggers too. Sometime we can make permanent subscribers from the nofollow comments. From my experience no follow links do have an effect ranking indirectly.

  11. Nofollow links have always been bridging the gap between prospective audience and service provide and it will be always as well. Nofollow has no doubt zero value to search engines but it has enormous value to engagement of prospective customers/visitors.

  12. Someone at Google needs to figure out a smarter way to assess links rather than treating most links as no follow. A website needs a kitemark or ranking which then makes it acceptable to all search engines. Maybe a special certificate from W3C.org or WHOIS since they are the data base with the registration details. RSVP.

  13. Hi !!

    I think you are right on traffic part that No-follow backlinks helps in increasing the traffic. It somehow directly or indirectly also helps in maintaining and boosting the PA, DA of the website.

    Good article..

  14. i have a little bit doubt about fact that Nofollow helps to enhance DA & PA of nay website. if this is the case then everyone will look for nofollow backlink instead of follow.

  15. Like In comparison to 1 Do-Follow Backlink from a site what would be the effect if we get a No-follow Backlink from the same site. What difference could we find in the DA increasing from either of the sources?

  16. yes, you are right Ahmed, Domain authority and page authority are very important factors these days and we need to have a blend of No follow and Do follow links in order to get good DA, PA…thanks

  17. Hello Ahmed,

    Indeed, nofollow links are equally important as dofollow. Thank you for putting light on other benefits as well.

    Regards,
    Karan

  18. I Agree your article. It’s great. But in my point of view no follow links also give more benefit to our site. If we creat more numbers of do follow links on our website. So google can think it’s spammy website. So we need no follow links on our website to keep away from google penalty.

  19. Great Share!
    I usually prefer commentluv enabled do follow link sites but after reading the above stuff, now I am deciding to involve no follow links too for the perfect optimization of my website.

  20. I am blogger since 2002 and i am a student of BS commerce I love reading and writing and i working at a blog such a nice information about my search thanks for sharing

  21. Hello

    That’s great article. If we think about no follow tag, social media sites like FB, Twiiter also provide no follow tag but still we focus on those sites. So, no follow also important in SEO as per my thought. Thank you for sharing about no follow links. Great work Iftekhar. keep it up.

  22. A nofollow backlink from high authority and niche relevant site means highly targetted visitors with a high probability of conversion into leads, then secondly (as you said) user engagement means great user experience (another good signal to google) then increase in social sharing which again the important factor of ranking. To conclude even though a nofollow link does not pass any link juice but still provide other factors benefits that are important for ranking.

  23. No Follow means not to crawl then how can be this helpful ? when Google will unable to crawl. Now a days creating a do follow Backlinks are so thought work rather than no follow. we can make no follow easily by various popular sites such as Wikipedia and High PR CommentLuv enable blogs but we should invest only time in get dofollow Backlinks beacuse dofollow are very very much better than nofollow. we should build no follow just balance the ratio between both.

    Thanks 🙂

  24. Hi

    Here you have shared a very affirmative information about no-follow links. I really thankful to you. Your some points are very news that I read first time. I think you have a great knowledge about SEO. Please solve my query. I have a site “webnseo.in” If use some no-follow links on it, it’s beneficial for my site or not? If I use no-follow links on it then how much?

  25. A very comprehensive guide about no-follow links. Everyone will have clear understanding and importance of no-follow backlinks.

  26. Q. Can you let us know , How to Increase Original Web Traffic Online ? Its not easy to get original Traffic , Which step we will perform to get original traffic without any paying any thing or without social media traffic?

    waiting for your reply

  27. Simply desire to say your article is as astounding.
    The clearness in your post is simply great and i can assume
    you are an expert on this subject. Well with your permission let me to grab
    your feed to keep updated with forthcoming post. Thanks a million and please keep up the rewarding work.

  28. Previously I was not making no follow backlinks… But after reading your blog… I will surely make nofollow..
    Thanx for leting me know the importance of no follow backlinks..

  29. Hi Iftekhar…
    I usually use blog commenting to build some backlinks for my blog. but I was worried about if these backlinks are of any use. (those with Nofollow tag) . I supposed these backlinks as a waste of my time.
    But Reading your post, I came to know the importance of NoFollow backlins .
    Thanks … keep inspiring us

  30. Thanx Ifti, but can you plz mention if count of No follow will be very much higher than do follow, what will happen.

  31. I am agree with this post cause i have experience no-follow and do-follow both links are important for seo because simply if we remember by love or by hat but we are remembering same for link building :p

  32. Great post Iftekhar Ahmed. Everyone knows about links but they don’t know how it works. Very useful information shared about No Follow Backlinks, Traffic, Authority and DA, PA.. Thanks for sharing.

  33. When you do a good comment on the articles of famous sites, you will receive a lot of referral traffic. So, that’s a great way to let people know about your blog.

  34. Yes IFTI, Nofollow links are very helpful.. we can easily get nofollow from big sites like NDTV.

  35. Hi Ifti,

    Nice to know that nofollow links also have importance in SEO. Now I will also focus on building nofollow backlinks.

    Thanks

  36. Informative post. I have a small query, I have noticed nofollow links are helpful for blogs with long term posts, but does nofollow links help short term posts?
    For example, I am running a blog on deals niche, the niche is itself short term, where new offers come every hour. Does nofollow links helps to rank in case of short term posts???

    1. Hi,

      Yes it will indeed help you.

      Look out for the points I mentioned, it can help you increase your metrics and authority. So it will still be helpful if your blog is short term based.

      Thanks for the comment. 🙂

  37. Us it possible for health blog to get backlinks from popular sites like mashable ? If yes any way to do please explain a way .. I already know one way but want to know any other method

    1. Hi,

      Well everything is possible. There must be some other authority blogs and sites under health niche and if you are doing good with your posts, you can surely get linked by them.

      The problem is, even if we provide something new and valuable we still fail to reach the audience. So if you think you have written something valuable, simply go for promoting your content. Do email outreach, follow backlinko’s skyscraper technique etc.

      The whole intention is to get your content to them, once you pass in it you will definitely gonna get some benefits.

      Thanks

  38. Hey Ifti bro,
    Good share buddy..I didn’t thought that no-follow link will help that much..you have mentioned that you got a no-follow link from wiki,any tips for us to do the same?

    1. Hello Farman,

      Well I got many. If your article is really good and provide value then you can add your link to the related relevant wiki page of that topic. It won’t be removed.

      There are no special tips to get on wiki. Just focus on value and Quality, you will start getting linked by many top sites including wiki.

      Thanks.

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