Google’s algorithm evaluates hundreds of signals to decide what ranks — but not all signals carry equal weight. Links have been central to that calculation since Larry Page and Sergey Brin first built PageRank at Stanford in 1996, and dofollow links are the specific type that transfers ranking authority from one page to another.
If you’ve spent any time on link building and came away confused about which links actually help, the dofollow distinction is where the clarity starts.
These links remain among the top three ranking factors in Google’s algorithm, and misidentifying them leads to wasted outreach, misattributed link value, and missed opportunities to strengthen the pages that matter most to your business.
What a Dofollow Link Actually Is
A dofollow link is a standard HTML hyperlink that passes link equity — ranking authority — from the source page to the destination. No special code makes a link “dofollow.” The term is actually a misnomer that SEOs coined after Google introduced the nofollow attribute in 2005. Every link is dofollow by default unless someone explicitly restricts it.
In HTML, a dofollow link looks like this:
html
<a href="https://example.com">anchor text</a>No rel="nofollow", no rel="sponsored", no rel="ugc". The absence of a restrictive rel attribute is what makes a link dofollow. No browser or search engine actually recognizes rel="dofollow" as a valid attribute — the word exists purely as industry shorthand.
Google created the nofollow attribute to solve a specific problem: comment spam. Before 2005, spammers flooded blog comment sections with links because every link — regardless of quality or context — passed PageRank. The nofollow tag let webmasters say “this link exists, but I’m not vouching for it.” The SEO community needed a term for links that still passed authority, and “dofollow” filled that gap.
How Link Equity Actually Flows
The mechanics behind dofollow links are rooted in PageRank, the foundational algorithm that treated every hyperlink as a vote of confidence. When Page A links to Page B without a restrictive rel attribute, it transfers a portion of its accumulated authority — often called “link juice” — to Page B. Google’s crawlers follow that link, discover the destination, and incorporate the authority signal into their ranking calculations.
How much equity a single dofollow link passes depends on several factors working together. Domain authority is the most obvious one: a dofollow link from the New York Times carries dramatically more weight than one from a three-month-old niche blog. Topical relevance matters too — a dofollow link about SEO tools from a marketing publication sends a clearer signal than one from a site about home gardening.
Then there’s link placement. Google’s reasonable surfer model — outlined in a patent granted to Google — suggests that links more likely to receive user clicks pass more equity. A dofollow link embedded in the first few paragraphs of an article’s body content carries more weight than one tucked into a footer, sidebar, or author bio. This is why context-rich editorial links are the gold standard for link building: they sit exactly where readers (and Google’s algorithms) pay the most attention.
The number of outbound links on the source page also dilutes equity per link. A page linking to three external resources distributes more authority per link than a page linking to fifty. This doesn’t mean links from link-heavy pages are worthless — it means a dofollow link from a focused, editorially selective page is worth disproportionately more.
Dofollow vs. Nofollow: What Changed in 2019
The difference between dofollow and nofollow comes down to one HTML attribute:
html
<!-- Dofollow (default) -->
<a href="https://example.com">anchor text</a>
<!-- Nofollow -->
<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">anchor text</a>For fourteen years after its 2005 introduction, nofollow worked as a hard directive — Google simply didn’t pass equity through those links. That changed in September 2019, when Google announced two new attributes and a fundamental shift in how all three are treated:
rel="sponsored"— for paid placements, advertisements, and compensated linksrel="ugc"— for links in user-generated content like comments and forum postsrel="nofollow"— remains the general-purpose “I don’t vouch for this” attribute
The critical change: starting March 1, 2020, Google treats all three as hints rather than directives. Google’s crawlers may now choose to follow, index, or pass equity through nofollow-attributed links when their algorithms judge it appropriate.
What does this mean practically? The gap between dofollow and nofollow has narrowed, but dofollow links remain the only guaranteed mechanism for authority transfer. A nofollow link might pass value. A dofollow link does pass value. For anyone building a link strategy, that certainty matters.
| Attribute | Passes Equity | Crawled | Best Use Case |
|---|---|---|---|
| None (dofollow) | Yes | Yes | Editorial citations, resource references |
rel="nofollow" | Hint | Hint | Untrusted content, general caution |
rel="sponsored" | Hint | Hint | Paid links, ads, affiliate content |
rel="ugc" | Hint | Hint | Comments, forums, user submissions |
Why Dofollow Links Still Drive Rankings
The numbers tell a straightforward story. Backlinko analyzed 11.8 million Google results and found that the number-one ranking page has 3.8x more backlinks than pages in positions two through ten. Domain-level link authority — measured through metrics like Ahrefs Domain Rating — correlates strongly with higher positions across virtually every keyword category.
Dofollow links contribute to rankings through three distinct mechanisms. First, they transfer PageRank, which Google confirmed it still uses as a core ranking signal even though the public PageRank toolbar was retired in 2016. Second, they accelerate discovery — when Googlebot follows a dofollow link to a new page, that page gets indexed faster than if it relied solely on sitemap submissions or direct URL inspection. Third, they carry topical context through anchor text, helping Google understand what the linked page covers.
The scale of the opportunity — and the penalty for ignoring it — shows up in Ahrefs’ study of 14 billion web pages. A full 96.55% of all indexed pages receive zero organic traffic from Google. Among those invisible pages, 66% have no referring domains at all. No external sites linking to them means no dofollow authority flowing in, and without that authority signal, competing for any remotely competitive keyword becomes an uphill fight.
Current analyses estimate that backlinks account for roughly 13% of Google’s overall ranking algorithm. That’s significantly lower than the 50%+ weight links carried in Google’s early years, but it still places link equity among the top three factors — alongside content quality and user experience signals. For competitive queries, the difference between ranking on page one and page two often comes down to which page has stronger dofollow link support.
How to Check Whether a Link Is Dofollow
There are three reliable ways to verify a link’s follow status, and the right one depends on whether you’re checking a single link or auditing an entire profile.
Inspect the HTML. Right-click the link in any browser and select “Inspect” or “Inspect Element.” In the elements panel, find the <a> tag. If the tag contains no rel attribute, or if the rel attribute doesn’t include “nofollow,” “sponsored,” or “ugc,” the link is dofollow. This works for spot-checking individual links but doesn’t scale.
Install a browser extension. The Ahrefs SEO Toolbar, NoFollow Simple, and SEOquake all overlay visual indicators on links as you browse — typically highlighting nofollow links with a colored border or dotted outline so dofollow links stand out by contrast. This is the fastest method for evaluating links across an entire page.
Run a backlink audit in Google Search Console or a third-party tool. Ahrefs, Semrush, and Moz all allow you to pull every backlink pointing to a domain and filter by follow status. Google Search Console’s Links report shows your top linking sites and pages, though it doesn’t distinguish between dofollow and nofollow — you’ll need an external tool for that granularity.
One important caveat: page-level meta directives override individual link attributes. If a page includes <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> in its <head>, every outbound link on that page becomes nofollow — even links with no restrictive rel attribute on the anchor tag itself. Always check the page’s meta tags before assuming a link is dofollow based on its HTML alone.
When to Use Dofollow vs. Nofollow on Your Own Site
The default — linking without any rel attribute — is correct when you’re making a genuine editorial endorsement. Citing a study, referencing a tool you trust, linking to a methodology paper, quoting an expert — these are all cases where dofollow is appropriate because you’re willing to vouch for the destination.
Add a restrictive attribute when the endorsement doesn’t apply. Google’s link spam policies are explicit: paid links require rel="sponsored", and user-generated links should carry rel="ugc". Affiliate links belong in the sponsored bucket. Links to sites you haven’t verified or don’t trust should get rel="nofollow" as a safeguard.
The consequences for getting this wrong run in both directions. Leaving paid links as dofollow violates Google’s guidelines and can trigger a manual action — a deliberate ranking penalty applied by a human reviewer. But nofollowing every outbound link isn’t harmless either. A site that refuses to pass any authority outward provides no editorial signals, and Google’s algorithms lose a useful data point about how your content relates to the broader web.
The sensible middle ground: dofollow your editorial links, restrict everything transactional or unverified, and don’t overthink it. If you’d feel comfortable telling a reader “I recommend this resource,” the link should be dofollow.
How to Earn Dofollow Backlinks
You can’t shortcut this. Google’s detection of link schemes — bought links, large-scale exchanges, private blog networks — has caught up with nearly every tactic people used to game the system. The strategies that still work for earning dofollow backlinks share one trait: the linking site gets genuine value from referencing your content.
Publish original research and data. When your site is the primary source for a statistic, other authors cite it — and citation links are almost always dofollow. Surveys, industry benchmarks, and data analyses are the highest-leverage content types for earning natural dofollow links because writers need sources, and original data can’t be found elsewhere.
Create the resource everyone else ends up linking to. The page that covers a topic more thoroughly and accurately than anything else ranking for it will accumulate dofollow links passively. Other writers need to cite something, and they’ll pick the most comprehensive option available rather than rewrite the explanation themselves.
Build tools that solve recurring problems. Free calculators, checkers, and workflow tools earn links because they provide ongoing utility beyond a single read. An AI-powered internal linking tool like Linkter illustrates the principle — it solves a real problem that SEO professionals face repeatedly, giving other sites a reason to link that persists long after any single article cycle ends.
Fix someone else’s broken links. This one’s underrated. Pages across the web link to resources that no longer exist — 404 errors that leave both the linking site and its readers worse off. Find those dead links in your niche using any backlink tool, create content that fills the gap, and reach out to the site owner suggesting your page as a replacement. They get a working link; you get a dofollow backlink from a page that was already willing to link to that topic.
Respond to journalist queries. HARO, Connectively, and Qwoted all work the same way: a journalist needs an expert quote, you provide it, and your attribution link in the published piece is dofollow. The referring domains tend to be high-authority news and trade publications — exactly the kind of sites where a single link moves the needle.
Building a Natural Backlink Profile
A healthy link profile doesn’t consist entirely of dofollow links. Organic online presence generates nofollow links naturally — social media shares, forum discussions, Wikipedia citations, and blog comments all carry restrictive attributes by default. Their presence signals to Google that your link growth is authentic rather than engineered.
Most established sites carry a dofollow ratio somewhere between 60% and 80%, with the remainder split across nofollow, sponsored, and ugc-attributed links. A dofollow percentage near 100% raises red flags for Google’s spam detection systems because it suggests manufactured link building.
Anchor text distribution deserves the same attention as follow-status ratios. A natural backlink profile includes branded anchors (“Linkter,” “linkter.ai”), naked URLs, generic phrases (“click here,” “read more,” “this tool”), and a modest percentage of keyword-targeted anchors. If the majority of your dofollow links use the same exact-match keyword anchor, that pattern signals manipulation regardless of how those links were acquired. Diversified anchor text paired with a natural dofollow-to-nofollow ratio is the combination that signals legitimate authority.
Internal Linking: The Dofollow Link You Control
External dofollow backlinks get most of the attention, but internal links — the dofollow links between pages on your own site — are the authority distribution mechanism you fully control. Every internal link passes equity from the source page to the destination, and unlike external backlinks, you decide exactly where that equity flows.
Strategic internal linking means directing authority from your highest-linked pages toward the pages you most want to rank. If your homepage and a few popular blog posts attract the majority of your external dofollow backlinks, linking from those pages to your key target pages distributes that accumulated equity deeper into your site. This is where tools built specifically for internal link optimization — like Linkter’s AI-powered suggestions — add measurable value by identifying linking opportunities you’d miss in a manual review.
Internal links are dofollow by default and should stay that way in almost every case. Nofollowing internal links was once a “PageRank sculpting” technique, but Google’s John Mueller has confirmed that nofollowing internal links wastes crawl equity rather than conserving it. Keep your internal links dofollow, and use them to create clear topical clusters that help both users and search engines navigate your content.
The Future of Dofollow Links in Google’s Algorithm
Google’s John Mueller has publicly suggested that backlinks will become less important over time as Google develops better signals for evaluating content quality directly. The 2019 nofollow-as-hint change, the growing weight of user experience metrics, and advances in natural language understanding all point toward an algorithm less dependent on links as a proxy for quality.
That said, the algorithmic weight has decreased from over 50% to roughly 13% — yet links still sit among the three pillars alongside content quality and user experience. For competitive keywords — the ones that drive meaningful business outcomes — the page with stronger dofollow link support still wins more often than it loses.
The practical takeaway hasn’t changed: dofollow links remain among the most reliable ways to build ranking authority. They work best when they point to content that deserves to rank on its own merits — comprehensive, accurate, and useful enough that linking to it feels like an obvious editorial choice rather than a favor.
Key Takeaways
A dofollow link is any hyperlink without a restrictive rel attribute — the default state of every link on the web. It passes ranking authority from source to destination, and Google treats it as a vote of confidence. The term itself is industry shorthand; there’s no actual dofollow attribute in HTML.
Why they matter: PageRank transfer, faster crawling and indexing, and topical signals through anchor text. Pages with more high-quality dofollow backlinks outrank those without — consistently, across studies.
What to do about it: dofollow your editorial links, restrict paid and user-generated links with the appropriate rel attributes, earn external dofollow links by being the best source on your topic, and use internal links to push that earned authority toward the pages that need it. That last piece — distributing equity through smart internal linking — is where most sites leave the biggest gains on the table. Linkter automates exactly that step, using AI to find internal linking opportunities across your site so the dofollow authority you’ve earned actually reaches the pages competing for your target keywords.