Search Engine Land
  • SEO
    • > All SEO
    • > What Is SEO?
    • > SEO Periodic Table
    • > Google: SEO
    • > Bing SEO
    • > Google Algorithm Updates
  • PPC
    • > All PPC
    • > What is PPC?
    • > Google Ads
    • > Microsoft Ads
    • > The Periodic Tables of PPC
  • Focuses
    • > Local
    • > Commerce
    • > Shopify SEO Guide
    • > Content
    • > Email Marketing Periodic Table
    • > Social Media Marketing
    • > Analytics
    • > Search Engine Land Awards
    • > All Focuses
  • SMX
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • About
    • > About Search Engine Land
    • > Newsletter
    • > Third Door Media
    • > Advertise

Processing...Please wait.

Search Engine Land » Channel » Content » Google’s new treatment of nofollow links has arrived

Google’s new treatment of nofollow links has arrived

Here’s what you need to be aware of as Google begins viewing nofollow links as a hint for crawling and indexing.

George Nguyen on February 28, 2020 at 8:00 am

As of Sunday, Mar. 1, Google is treating the nofollow link attribute as a hint, rather than a directive, for crawling and indexing purposes. Google is already treating all link attributes (sponsored, UGC and nofollow) as hints for ranking purposes and has been doing so since it made the original announcement in September.

First introduced in 2005, the nofollow link attribute was created to stop spam links from passing credit and manipulating ranking signals. Check out our nofollow explainer to get caught up on everything there is to know about the original nofollow attribute.

Defining link attributes. Last year, Google introduced new link attributes for sponsored and user-generated content (UGC).

rel="sponsored": This attribute can be used to identify links on your site that are part of an advertisement, sponsorship or some other paid agreement.

rel="ugc": This attribute is recommended for links appearing in user-generated content, like comments and forum posts.

rel="nofollow": This attribute can be applied to any scenario in which you want to link to a page but don’t want to pass along ranking credit to it.

Why Google introduced these new attributes. Google’s Gary Illyes and Danny Sullivan, who co-authored the September announcement, have said that the new attributes serve to help Google understand the web better and allow site owners to classify the nature of their links, if they want to.

But this is key: Whether you implement the attributes does not affect your site and doing so is completely voluntary.

What you should be doing. “If you were using nofollow to block any sensitive areas of your site that you didn’t want crawled, it probably makes sense to go block these in a different way,” Patrick Stox, technical SEO and brand ambassador for Ahrefs, told Search Engine Land. There are various ways, such as robots.txt or meta tags, that you can use to regulate how Google crawls and indexes pages.

As for the UGC and sponsored attributes, implementing them is voluntary. If you want to provide Google with that information (and have links classified for your own reference), feel free to do so. Whether you do or don’t won’t impact your site.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


New on Search Engine Land

    Webinar: Dominate your competition with Google auction insights and search intelligence

    Vimeo adds structured data to all public videos to improve Google Search visibility

    How to manage and edit your Google Business Profile from Google search

    Google Search Console page experience report now tracks more desktop search features

    What’s your SEO learning style?

About The Author

George Nguyen
George Nguyen was an editor for Search Engine Land, covering organic and paid search. His background is in journalism and content marketing. Prior to entering the industry, he worked as a radio personality, writer, podcast host and public school teacher.

Related Topics

ContentGoogle: SEOSEO

Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS

Learn actionable search marketing tactics that can help you drive more traffic, leads, and revenue.

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes (virtual)

June 14-15, 2022: SMX Advanced (virtual)

November 15-16, 2022: SMX Next (virtual)

Learn More About Our SMX Events

Discover time-saving technologies and actionable tactics that can help you overcome crucial marketing challenges.

Start Discovering Now: Spring (virtual)

September 28-29, 2022: Fall (virtual)

Learn More About Our MarTech Events

Webinars

Data-Driven Answers to Achieve Omnichannel Success

Is Your Marketing Stack Ready for Omnichannel CX?

Outrank in Organic Search with These 5 Core Tactics

See More Webinars

Intelligence Reports

Enterprise SEO Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Identity Resolution Platforms

Email Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Sales Enablement Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Digital Experience Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Call Analytics Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports

White Papers

Realising the power of virtual events for demand generation

The Progressive Marketer’s Ultimate Events Strategy 2022 Worksheet

CMO Guide: How to Plan Smart and Pivot Fast

The Retail Renaissance Report, USA Edition: 4 Keys to Predicting Online & In-Store Demand Across Global Markets

Thinking Bigger About Marketing Budgets

See More Whitepapers

Receive daily search news and analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • SEO
  • PPC

Our Events

  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX
  • MarTech

About

  • About Us
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS
  • Youtube

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.