What Are "Nofollow" and "Dofollow" Links in SEO?

Again we are going to talk about backlink, the most common topic and hottest topic webmasters and bloggers discussing SEO (search engine optimization) world. Today you will see, what are the types of backlinks and what kind of backlinks will benefit you and what not.

There are two types of backlinks:

  • Do-Follow and,
  • No-Follow.

The main confusion between these two types is the value of the backlink. I have always heard on blogs and webmaster forums about the benefits of dofollow and nofollow backlinks, I did some research myself using Google's webmasters tools and Google analytics and finally I am here with my own opinion and link building strategies.

What is link juice?

It is discussed on seo forums and webmaster discussion boards that Google uses link juice kind of algorithm to calculate the Google PageRank and serp (search engine result pages) ranking. For example, suppose one page have Google PR 5 and it links to two other pages with dofollow links since it is assumed that the value of PR 5 will be evenly divided and delivered to both the linked pages. It means, more backlink on single high pr page will reduce benefit per backlink.

It is always believed that only dofollow backlinks deliver link juice to your site and no follow do not do it. Another confusion is that Google webmaster's tools will show you a combined number of backlinks including both dofollow and nofollow. While Google link query by searching as "Link: yourpage" will give you a lot different result than Google webmaster tools. You will always see variations in number of backlinks from different seo tools.

Finally what I understand and recommend about dofollow and nofollow backlinks is in the name it self. It's only about following the link by Google bots from one page to another page. Means a dofollow link will make Google robot follow the link and index the page and nofollow link will restrict your page from being linked.

According to me, Dofollow backlinks is more important but, nofollow links must not be underestimated. Backlinks are not only for Google pr (Note that the PR is only the figure assigned by Google to your site, it has no relation with traffic and profit you get from your site) it also very useful to grab referral traffic.

For example, nofollow backlink from high traffic forum and blog comments might not be much useful to help you improve your PR, but may be very profitable to get high quality referral traffic. So it's up to you, what kind of backlinks do you want to build, both have their own importance.

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