Nofollow links are hyperlinks with a rel=“nofollow” tag. The rel=“nofollow” meta tag tells search engines not to follow one specific outbound link.
All links in newly created Yola websites are nofollow by default. Yola Sitebuilder is adding the rel=”nofollow” attribute to all of the external links.
Only people and not search engine bots can follow these links, so one of the best benefits of nofollow links is the additional traffic to your website.
What nofollow attribute does
Nofollow links can help website owners avoid problems with search engines which might believe they are selling influence or are somehow involved in schemes deemed as unacceptable SEO practices. This means that Google cannot penalize you for linking to a site that's known to be a low-quality site.
Note: Nofollow links do not influence the search engine rankings of the destination URL because Google does not count these links to increase PageRank (Google's own measurement of the quantity and quality of links).
Here are the posts from the major search engines at the time when the Nofollow attribute was announced:
- Google: Preventing comment spam and Search Console Help
- Yahoo: A Defense Against Comment Spam
- Microsoft: Working Together Against Blog Spam
For many SEO experts, a nofollow link from a reputable site is still more valuable than a dofollow link from a low domain authority site. In fact, having nofollow links can be a great way to drive traffic, use social signals, and support influencer marketing.
How to add a nofollow tag
When you customizing a text link, select an option Add a Nofollow tag in Link settings:
Click Submit. Your link now has a nofollow attribute.
Changing the nofollow attribute
You may want to allow a follow link in certain circumstances. For example:
- Bylines of authors for the guest posts: You may wish to allow a follow link if your guest poster is someone known to you and whose site you trust.
- If you are interviewing a celebrity or a subject matter expert, you can link to that person’s site.
- Editorial content: If you are providing an unbiased and unpaid review of a product or a service.
- Quotations: If you are citing another article as a source.
Important: If you write a lot of review posts or if you receive something in exchange for reviewing it, then you may raise a red flag for Google which may begin to view your posts as “sponsored” content.
To make the link follow, uncheck the option Add the Nofollow tag in the Link settings menu. Nofollow tag control is a premium feature and you may need to upgrade your subscription.
Other helpful articles
Adding a link to downloadable file as submenu item