Nofollow link
Updated June 22, 2026 · Reviewed by the Quratic editorial team
Definition
A nofollow link is a hyperlink with rel="nofollow" (or rel="nofollow sponsored" / "ugc") telling search engines not to pass ranking credit to the target URL. Since 2019 Google treats nofollow as a hint, not a command — but the attribute still signals that the link is not an editorial endorsement.
What nofollow actually does
rel="nofollow" marks a link as non-endorsed for ranking purposes. Common placements: user comments, forum posts, paid placements, press release wire services, and widgets. Google may still crawl the URL, use the anchor text as a weak discovery signal, or ignore the hint entirely — but you should not rely on nofollow links to move organic rank the way editorial dofollow links can.
Related values from the same spec family:
rel="sponsored"— paid or compensated linksrel="ugc"— user-generated content (reviews, comments, forum signatures)
All three can be combined (e.g. rel="nofollow sponsored").
How nofollow differs from dofollow and from AI citations
Dofollow is industry slang for a normal link without nofollow — not an HTML attribute. It traditionally passes PageRank; nofollow traditionally did not (now a hint either way).
Neither concept maps cleanly to LLM citations. Answer engines do not read rel attributes when deciding whether to name your brand or cite your docs. A nofollow mention on TechCrunch can still influence GEO if the page enters retrieval; a dofollow link from a low-quality directory may move neither rank nor AI visibility. Measure mentions and citation rate, not follow status alone.
In Asian markets
Regional directories, marketplace profiles, and local media often default to nofollow on outbound links — especially user-submitted listings in Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asia. Teams that discard these placements as “SEO worthless” lose entity corroboration: consistent brand name + category + geography across the web, which supports brand entity resolution and E-E-A-T even without link equity. For multilingual GEO, a nofollow citation in Nikkei or the Straits Times can outweigh a dofollow link from an unrelated US blog.
Example
A SaaS brand earns a nofollow mention in a Singapore fintech roundup. Organic rank is unchanged, but Perplexity begins citing the roundup for “best [category] Singapore” prompts — and eventually links the brand’s docs after first-party content improves model grounding.