DoFollow link

Post links from your own website to another page or website? You then often use a dofollow link (most inbound links will also be dofollow). What is a dofollow link and how valuable is it to a website’s SEO? In this article, I discuss it.

What is a dofollow link?

A dofollow link is a way of letting web crawlers know that a particular page is accessible for indexing. It is permitted to follow this link. This setting is on by default on web pages; it is possible to change it to a nofollow link. So when you add a link on your website, it will automatically be dofollow.(1)

It then does not say rel=”dofollow”. There is then nothing at the link. When it is a nofollow link, it says rel=”nofollow.”

Dofollow and nofollow

On every website, links default to dofollow. For example, you use such a link in CMS, which uses a specific word in text on a page to link to another page. This creates value for a Web page. It is also possible to set a nofollow link: this means that this link does not count in determining the ranking. (2)

Visitors to a website have the option of following both dofollow and nofollow links. This looks the same to the visitor, but search engine web crawlers see the difference and do not skip the dofollow links.

The impact of a dofollow link on SEO

A dofollow link certainly still has an impact on the SEO of a website or page. It determines the value of a web page. The more there is a link to a particular page, the higher the ranking of that page.

Partly because of link farming and reciprocal links, this is no longer so easy; because Google has changed the search algorithm accordingly. Context and relevance are therefore very important in creating impact from a dofollow link.

Be careful when obtaining dofollow links to the website that you also vary a bit in which links you obtain. 100% of links with a dofollow won’t work either. Usually this is somewhere around 85/15 percent (this depends on the market and what competitors are doing, which is what I base this on).

My advice

We recommend looking closely at the options with the dofollow link. Among other things, it is important to use this properly: it does not always add value to SEO, especially if there is keyword spamming or non-pure links. Therefore, always check links and set them to nofollow if necessary. An SEO specialist has the right knowledge and skills to handle the use of links in a smart way.