Nofollow link (rel nofollow, sponsored, ugc)
A nofollow link is a link with rel="nofollow" in its code, which tells Google you'd rather it not connect your site to the page you're linking to, or crawl that page from your site. Google offers two more specific tags: rel="sponsored" for paid links and ads, and rel="ugc" for links people post in comments and forums.
Source: Google Search Central, Qualify your outbound links to Google (last updated December 10, 2025), checked October 29, 2026
What Nofollow link (rel nofollow, sponsored, ugc) means for your business
A dofollow link is just a regular link. There's no dofollow tag to add. Google says a regular link needs no rel attribute at all. "Dofollow" is SEO shorthand for that kind of link, one that can pass ranking credit.
Nofollow came first, in 2005, as a way to fight comment spam. In September 2019 Google added sponsored and ugc, and said it would treat all three as hints about which links to count instead of ignoring them outright. So Google may still use a nofollow link, and the page behind it can still get crawled if Google finds it some other way.
On your own site, we'd tag ads, affiliate links and paid posts as sponsored, and leave links to partners you'd vouch for as normal links. Google's spam policies say paid links are fine once they're tagged that way. When a news site or a forum gives you a nofollow link, it still sends people to you, so we'd count it as a good link.
If your links to sponsors and affiliates were never tagged, or you can't tell which ones are, we'll check every link that leaves your site and tag the ones that need it.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview said nofollow links pass no ranking credit, citing Wikipedia, Semrush, Mailchimp and YouTube, and didn't mention Google's 2019 change to hints. ChatGPT did mention the hint change, with no sources.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
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