What does DoFollow mean?

In general, “dofollow” is a link that a software program (searchbot or crawler) is supposed to follow when reading it out.

Definition

Of course, a link should not only be followed by the searchbot, but also by real users. The counterpart to this is the “nofollow” tag.

Background

The algorithms of Google and Co. were not always as sophisticated as they are today. To enable users to explore new content and pages on the Internet, references(hyperlinks) to other websites were created.

It was found out almost 20 years ago that methodical backlink placement has a beneficial effect on website rankings.

This resulted in masses of referrals being placed on blogs and forums for link building. This was fixed at Google, for example, since the
Panda Update
fixed and brought the algorithm to a new level.

This has significantly increased usability, as Google now evaluates the results according to the quality of the content and sorts out pages that are of little use to the user. Now you can also better understand the purpose of DoFollow and nofollow attributes.

DoFollow links are not prohibited and do not violate the Google Webmaster Guidelines. However, there are methods in link building that can result in a Google Penalty.

Practical comparison: DoFollow / NoFollow

In order for you to clean up your link profile, you first need to know how to recognize a NoFollow link. Here is an example of a NoFollow tag within a link:

<ahref=”https://backlinked.com/”rel=”nofollow“>example</a>

Note: Every link that does not contain a “NoFollow” attribute is automatically a DoFollow link!

The ball’s in your court! Check the links below (Our Blog) for a no-follow designation:

Our blog

Our blog

You have no idea how to check a link for NoFollow? Then watch this video!

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Relevance for SEO

If you intend to place backlinks sensibly and in the long term, you should know the difference.

Unlike nofollow, a dofollow link does not require any tagging. Via dofollow important key figures like “LinkJuice” and “PageRank” are transferred and passed on to the linked website.

With nofollow links, on the other hand, the attribute is added on purpose so that crawlers do not follow these links.

So, for high quality backlinks, topic relevant content on the websites are essential nowadays to confirm the seriousness of the domain.

This generally means: quality before quantity. So in order for Google to recognize the links as credible, it is important to always keep this point in mind.

To penalize “low-quality” backlinks, a feature called the Disavow tool has been added to Google Search Console, allowing you to manually flag such links.

Conclusion

With internal (DoFollow) links you help not only the users but also Google to understand your website. If it is appropriate and makes sense in terms of content, link to other posts. Unlike external links, you can use hard anchor texts.