Learn the importance of internal nofollow links and how to use them to enhance your SEO strategy.
Mastering internal nofollow links can help you optimize link equity and improve search engine ranking.
Start using internal nofollow links today to control your site’s SEO better!
What Are Nofollow Links?
Nofollow links are hyperlinks with a rel=”nofollow” attribute. This attribute instructs search engines not to follow the link, meaning it doesn’t pass on link equity, often called “link juice.“
Website owners use nofollow links to manage which pages search engine crawlers should ignore, preventing them from influencing pagerank flow.
Why Are Nofollow Links Important?
Nofollow links are crucial for several reasons:
1. Control Over Link Equity
Nofollow links help direct link equity to the most important pages on your site. This means you can focus the SEO power of your internal links on the pages that matter most, improving their ranking in search engine results.
2. Preventing Spam Impact
Nofollow links prevent user-generated content, like comments and forum posts, from negatively affecting your site’s SEO. By using nofollow links in these areas, you can avoid passing link equity to potentially harmful or low-quality sites.
3. Avoiding Penalties
Overusing do-follow links can lead to search engine penalties. Nofollow links help you maintain a balanced link profile, reducing the risk of being penalized for unnatural linking patterns.
4. Managing External Links
When you link to external sites that you don’t fully trust or don’t want to endorse, using nofollow links ensures that these sites don’t benefit from your link equity. This helps you protect your site’s authority and focus link equity on trusted valuable links.
How to Check If a Link Is Nofollow
To check if a link is nofollow:
1. Right-click on the link and select “Inspect” or “View Page Source.“
2. Look for the rel=”nofollow” attribute in the HTML code.
Using tools like SEO browser extensions can also simplify this process by highlighting nofollow links automatically.
When to Use Nofollow Links
Use nofollow links in the following scenarios:
- Sponsored Content: Use nofollow links for sponsored posts to follow search engine rules and avoid penalties. This ensures you aren’t passing link equity to paid content, which can help maintain your site’s integrity and compliance.
- User-Generated Content: Add nofollow links to comments or forum posts to stop search engines from following these links. This helps prevent low-quality or spammy user-generated links from affecting your site’s SEO.
- Untrusted Content: Use nofollow links for sites you don’t trust or want to endorse, keeping your link equity safe. This ensures that you aren’t boosting the SEO of potentially harmful or irrelevant websites.
When to Avoid Using Nofollow Links
Avoid nofollow links when:
1. Linking to Valuable Content
Use do-follow links to pass on link equity to valuable internal and external links. This means if you’re linking to an important page on your site or a high-quality, trusted external site, you should use do-follow links.
Dofollow links help boost the SEO of these valuable pages, making them more visible in search engine results.
2. Improving SEO
Internal links should generally be do-follow to help distribute link equity within your site. When you link to other pages within your site, using do-follow links helps spread the SEO benefits throughout your site.
This can improve the overall ranking of your site by ensuring that all your important pages receive some link equity.
3. Building Relationships
External links to trusted sites should be do-follow to build a good relationship with other website owners. When you link to other websites that you trust and want to support, using do-follow links shows that you endorse their content.
This can help you build good relationships with other site owners, which can lead to more backlinks and better SEO for your site.
4. Enhancing User Experience
Use do-follow links when linking to pages that provide valuable information to your users.
This ensures that search engines can follow these links and recognize the useful resources you are directing your visitors to, which can improve your site’s credibility and user satisfaction.
How to Fix Internal Nofollow Links in WordPress
1. Identify Nofollow Links
Use a plugin or inspect element to find internal nofollow links. You can use plugins like Rank Math SEO or Google Search Console to scan your site and highlight nofollow links.
Alternatively, you can manually check by right-clicking on links and selecting “Inspect” to view the HTML code.
Must Read^ Find your internal links & External Links
2. Edit Links
Go to the WordPress editor, find the link, and remove the rel=”nofollow” attribute.
Navigate to the page or post where the nofollow link is located, edit the link, and delete the rel=”nofollow” part from the HTML code.
3. Update and Test
Save your changes and ensure that the links are now do-follow by re-checking the HTML code. After editing the links, save your changes and inspect the links again to confirm that the nofollow attribute has been removed.
You can use tools like SEO browser extensions to verify that the links are now do-follow.
4. Regularly Review Your Links
Make it a habit to periodically review your internal links to ensure they are properly set up. Regular checks can help you maintain an effective linking strategy and quickly address any issues with nofollow links that might arise over time.
Additional Tips for SEO Optimization
- User Generated Content: Always add nofollow attributes to links in user-generated content.
- Search Engine Crawlers: Ensure that your site’s important pages are accessible to search engine crawlers.
- Link Attributes: Regularly check your site’s link attributes to maintain optimal link equity distribution.
- HTML Code: Familiarize yourself with basic HTML code to manually adjust link attributes as needed.
Conclusion
Understanding and utilizing internal nofollow links can significantly enhance your SEO strategy. By controlling which links pass on link equity and which don’t, you can improve your site’s search engine ranking and maintain a balanced link profile.
Frequently Asked Questions(FAQs)
What are internal nofollow outlinks?
Internal nofollow outlinks are links within your website that point to other internal pages with a nofollow attribute, instructing search engines not to follow them.
Should my internal links be nofollow?
Generally, internal links should not be nofollow. Use dofollow links to ensure link equity flows through your site, enhancing overall SEO.
What are nofollow links?
Nofollow links are hyperlinks with a rel=”nofollow” attribute that tells search engines not to follow the link, preventing the transfer of link equity.
What are internal followed links?
Internal followed links are internal links without the nofollow attribute, allowing search engines to follow and pass on link equity, improving the linked pages’ SEO.
