Do Follow Links Explained: What They Are & How to Check

Most explanations of do follow links are written for link builders hunting backlinks on other people's sites. That's useful for outreach — but it skips a more immediate question for anyone who owns or builds a website: are the links on your own pages configured the way you think they are? Let's clear up the terminology first, then get practical.

What Is a Do Follow Link?

Here's the misconception that trips up almost everyone new to SEO: there is no rel="dofollow" attribute. It doesn't exist in the HTML spec, and Google doesn't check for it. A dofollow link is simply a normal link with no rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", or rel="ugc" attribute attached.

So the dofollow link meaning is defined by absence, not presence. When an tag has nothing telling search engines to discount it, that link behaves the way links have behaved since the earliest days of the web: it can pass ranking signals, contribute to crawl discovery, and count toward the relationship between two pieces of content. "Dofollow" became SEO shorthand for "this link wasn't nofollowed," and the label stuck even though it never had official standing in Google Search Central documentation or the HTML standard.

Every link on your site defaults to dofollow unless you or your CMS explicitly adds one of those rel values. That default matters more than most site owners realize, because plugins, comment systems, and page builders often add nofollow automatically — sometimes without anyone noticing.

Do Follow vs. No Follow: How Google Treats Each

The practical difference used to be simple: dofollow links could pass PageRank and other equity signals, while nofollow links were a hard stop — Google would neither follow nor count them.

That changed in September 2019. Google announced in its Evolving nofollow post that nofollow, along with the two new attributes discussed below, would become hints rather than strict directives, effective for crawling and indexing behavior starting March 1, 2020. In practice, Google may choose to crawl a nofollowed link and may consider it when evaluating rankings, though it still won't be treated as a full endorsement in most cases.

This is the nuance a dofollow vs nofollow comparison needs to get right: nofollow no longer guarantees zero value, and dofollow doesn't guarantee full link equity transfer either — Google has always applied its own judgment about spam, relevance, and trustworthiness. The nofollow hint simply gave the algorithm more discretion, treating nofollow as one signal among many rather than an absolute switch.

Sponsored and UGC: The Other Two Link Attributes

That same 2019 update introduced two additional rel attributes giving search engines more precise information than a blanket nofollow ever could:

• rel="sponsored" flags links from a paid or compensated relationship — affiliate links, paid placements, sponsored content.
• rel="ugc" flags links inserted by users, typically in comment sections, forum posts, or open profile fields.

Both function like nofollow hints for crawling and ranking, but give Google (and Bing, which follows similar conventions) more context about why a link shouldn't be treated as a full editorial endorsement. Attributes can be combined — a sponsored comment link can carry both sponsored and ugc. As Search Engine Journal notes, current guidance still recommends using the most specific attribute available rather than defaulting everything to plain nofollow.

Why Do Follow Links Still Matter for SEO

Despite the hint-model shift, dofollow backlinks SEO value hasn't disappeared. When a relevant, trustworthy site links to you without any rel attribute, it remains one of the clearer signals Google uses to judge authority and topical relevance — link equity still flows, anchor text still provides context, and it remains a meaningful factor in ranking evaluation.

But a natural backlink profile isn't 100% dofollow, and it shouldn't be. Real websites accumulate a mix: nofollowed forum mentions, sponsored partnership links, UGC comment links, and ordinary editorial dofollow links. A profile that's suspiciously all-dofollow — especially one built quickly — can look manufactured rather than earned, exactly the pattern Google's link spam policies are designed to catch. Diversity in your inbound link attributes isn't a weakness; it's what an organically grown site actually looks like.

How to Check Whether Your Links Are Dofollow or Nofollow

Before worrying about other people's backlinks, check your own outbound and internal links — this is the audit most site owners skip. A few practical ways to check if a link is dofollow:

1. View page source. Right-click any page, select "View Page Source," and search for the anchor tag around the link in question. No rel="nofollow", sponsored, or ugc" means it's dofollow by default.
2. Browser extensions. Several free extensions highlight nofollow links directly on the rendered page, faster than digging through source code link by link.
3. Rendered vs. raw HTML. If links are injected via JavaScript, what you see in the raw source may not match what Googlebot actually renders — a common blind spot covered in JavaScript Links and SEO.
4. Simulate Googlebot's view. For a more accurate picture of how search engines process your link attributes, see View Page as Googlebot: The Correct 2026 Method.

Manually checking a handful of pages is manageable. Checking every link across a site with hundreds or thousands of pages is not — which is where automated auditing earns its keep.

Auditing Your Site's Links With Optimevra

Misconfigured link attributes rarely happen on purpose. A CMS update adds nofollow to every outbound link by default, a plugin strips attributes during a migration, or a developer copies a template that nofollows internal navigation by mistake. Any of these can quietly choke off link equity between your own pages or devalue partnerships you intended to pass credit through.

A full website link audit tool should catch this alongside the technical issues that usually travel with it: broken links, crawl and indexing problems, and pages that aren't rendering as expected. Optimevra's site audit checks link and rel-attribute configuration as part of a broader pass across UX, performance, and technical SEO — the same audit that surfaces issues covered in Indexability Explained, so you're not running five separate tools to get the full picture.

Understanding how dofollow links work is only half the job — knowing how your own site's links are actually configured is the other half. Run an Optimevra audit or try the live demo to surface broken links, misapplied nofollow/sponsored/ugc attributes, and the other technical issues quietly costing you rankings and conversions.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a dofollow link the same as a normal link?

Yes — a dofollow link is just a standard link with no rel="nofollow", sponsored, or ugc attribute. There's no separate rel="dofollow" markup; "dofollow" is community shorthand describing the absence of those attributes, not an actual HTML feature.

Do nofollow links still help SEO at all?

They can. Since Google's 2019 update, nofollow is treated as a hint rather than a strict rule, meaning Google may still crawl a nofollowed link or factor it into evaluation, though it's typically not treated as a full editorial endorsement.

How can I tell if a link on a webpage is dofollow or nofollow?

View the page source and check the anchor tag for a rel attribute — no nofollow, sponsored, or ugc value means it's dofollow. Browser extensions that highlight nofollow links, or a site audit tool, make this faster across many pages at once.

Should I nofollow my own outbound links?

Not automatically. Nofollow (or sponsored/ugc where relevant) makes sense for paid placements, untrusted user-generated content, or links you don't want to vouch for — but ordinary editorial links to sources you trust are usually fine left as dofollow.

What's the difference between rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc"?

rel="sponsored" marks links tied to paid or compensated arrangements, like affiliate or advertising links. rel="ugc" marks links added by users, typically in comments or forum posts; both function as hints similar to nofollow but give search engines more specific context.

Can too many dofollow links hurt my site?

An unnaturally uniform, all-dofollow backlink profile — especially one that grows quickly — can look manufactured and draw scrutiny under Google's link spam policies. A healthy profile typically mixes dofollow, nofollow, sponsored, and UGC links, reflecting how links accumulate naturally over time.