nofollow is a value that tells search engines not to follow a link or all links on a page. It can be set on a single link with the rel attribute or for a whole page with the meta robots tag. Google says links with these attributes will generally not be followed, and the linked page may still be found and crawled through other links or sitemaps.
How do you use nofollow?
On a single link:
<a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">Example</a>
On a whole page:
<meta name="robots" content="nofollow">
In September 2019, Google announced two more values, sponsored and ugc, that describe why a link is marked. They became effective for crawling and indexing on March 1, 2020. Google describes the new values as hints about how to process links, as opposed to directives.
Values can be combined, for example rel="ugc nofollow". Google still accepts nofollow for paid links. Site owners may remove ugc from links of trusted contributors who have a record of high-quality contributions.
| Value | Purpose according to Google | Required? | How Google treats it |
|---|---|---|---|
no rel value (often called "dofollow") | regular link that Google is expected to fetch and parse without qualification | –; Google has no dofollow value | Google can follow and parse the link |
rel="sponsored" | advertisements and paid placements | for paid links, sponsored (preferred) or nofollow; otherwise link spam under the spam policies | hint; links with this value are generally not followed |
rel="ugc" | links in user-generated content such as comments and forum posts | recommended; can be removed for members with a consistent record of high-quality contributions | hint; links with this value are generally not followed |
rel="nofollow" (this term) | when no other value applies and you'd rather Google not associate your site with the target or crawl it from your site | no; still acceptable for paid links | hint, for ranking since 10 Sept 2019 and for crawling and indexing since 1 March 2020 |
nofollow as a robots meta rule (this term) | don't follow the links on this page | no | applies to every link on the page |
Target pages can still be found and crawled through sitemaps or links from other sites. Several values can be combined, separated by spaces or commas, for example ugc nofollow. For links within your own site, Google points to a robots.txt Disallow rule, and to noindex for keeping a page out of the index. Sources: Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links to Google (last updated 2025-12-10); Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search, link spam (last updated 2026-08-28); Google Search Central Blog: Evolving "nofollow" – new ways to identify the nature of links (2019-09-10); Google Search Central: Robots meta tag specifications, nofollow. Last checked: .
Does “dofollow” exist?
Google’s documentation lists no value called dofollow. A link without a nofollow, sponsored or ugc value is a normal link.
Example
A blog allows comments. Links in comments are rendered as <a href="..." rel="ugc nofollow">. A sponsored product review links to the shop with rel="sponsored".
Common mistakes
- Marking all outbound links nofollow. Only links that fit the cases above need it.
- Setting nofollow in the page-level tag by accident. All links on the page are affected, including internal ones.
- Expecting nofollow to hide a page. The target can still be crawled if other links or sitemaps point to it.
Sources
- Qualify your outbound links to Google – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Evolving nofollow – new ways to identify the nature of links – Google Search Central Blog (Sep 2019)developers.google.com
- Robots meta tag, data-nosnippet, and X-Robots-Tag specifications – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- Spam policies for Google web search – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
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