Nofollow link

A nofollow link is a link carrying the attribute rel="nofollow", which tells search engines not to pass ranking signals to the target page. The link still works for readers, still sends referral traffic, and is still crawled. It simply carries no endorsement.

Where the attribute came from

Google introduced nofollow in 2005 to stop comment spam. For fifteen years it worked as a strict instruction. Since March 2020 Google treats it as a hint, which means the crawler decides case by case whether to follow the link and whether to count it. How often it does is not public.

Nofollow, sponsored, and UGC

Google distinguishes three attributes today. rel="sponsored" marks paid or advertised placements. rel="ugc" marks links inside user-generated content such as comments and forum threads. rel="nofollow" covers the general case of a link you do not want to vouch for. A single link can carry more than one of them.

How common are they?

Rarer than most people assume. Of 33,482 publisher offers in the Linkbroker catalogue, 97.4 percent are dofollow and 2.4 percent nofollow (as of September 2026). If you are worried about accidentally buying nofollow placements, the numbers say that is not where the risk sits.

Does a nofollow link have value?

Yes, but not the value most buyers have in mind. A nofollow link from a publication with real readers sends referral traffic, builds brand recognition, and puts your name into the source sets that AI systems draw on. What it does not do reliably is move a page up in classic rankings. That is the honest limitation.

There is a second reason not to avoid them entirely. A backlink profile made exclusively of dofollow links looks built rather than earned.

How this works on the marketplace

Every listing states the link attribute before you book, next to the publisher's traffic estimate and topical fit. You choose against your goal instead of finding out after publication. See the catalogue.

Related: backlink · dofollow link · backlink profile