🧠Dofollow vs nofollow, explained simply
One line of HTML decides whether a backlink passes link equity — or nothing at all. Here's the plain-English version.
Table of contents · 7 sections+
Every backlink on the internet carries an invisible instruction to Google. That instruction is one of two words: follow or nofollow. It sounds like a small technicality. It's the difference between a link that lifts your rankings and a link that mostly just sits there.
This is the shortest, plainest explanation we could write, without dumbing anything down.
What a backlink actually is
A backlink is any clickable link on someone else's website that points to yours. In HTML it looks like <a href="https://yoursite.com">click here</a>. Google uses backlinks as votes of confidence — one of the original ideas behind PageRank was that a link is a website saying "this other page is worth a look."
The catch: not every vote counts the same. Some links pass authority (called link equity or link juice). Others don't. The rel attribute decides which is which.
What "dofollow" means
A dofollow link is the default. If nothing special is added to the HTML, Google treats the link as a normal editorial recommendation. PageRank flows through it. Rankings can move because of it. When SEOs talk about "building backlinks," they almost always mean dofollow ones.
You don't need to add any code to make a link dofollow — you just don't add anything that would stop it.
What "nofollow" means
A nofollow link has an attribute that tells search engines to think twice: rel="nofollow". It was introduced by Google in 2005 to fight comment spam. For years, nofollow was a hard signal: Google saw it and passed no link equity at all.
In 2019, Google changed nofollow to a "hint". Along with it came two siblings: rel="ugc" for user-generated content (forum posts, comments) and rel="sponsored" for paid or affiliate links. The important thing for you: even as a "hint," most SEOs still see roughly zero ranking benefit from nofollow links in practice.
Side by side
| Dofollow | Nofollow | |
|---|---|---|
| HTML | <a href="..."> | <a rel="nofollow" href="..."> |
| Passes PageRank | Yes | Basically no |
| Helps rankings | Yes | Minimal |
| Sends referral traffic | Yes | Yes |
| Counts toward your profile | Yes | Yes, but weakly |
Why nofollow exists at all
Google introduced nofollow because the web was being flooded with spam links: blog comments, forum signatures, guestbooks. Webmasters needed a way to publish user content without endorsing every URL inside it. Nofollow was the compromise.
Later, Google extended it to sponsored and paid placements — including press releases. If someone paid to place a link, the argument goes, that link isn't really an editorial vote of confidence.
What most links on the web actually are
A rough breakdown of the average website's outbound link profile in 2025:
- →Dofollow (~60%) — internal navigation, editorial links to other sites, most content.
- →Nofollow (~25%) — comment sections, social profiles, some directories.
- →Sponsored (~10%) — affiliate links, ads, paid placements.
- →UGC (~5%) — forum posts, user-generated content sections.
Why this matters for press releases
Here's the trap that catches almost every business trying to use press releases for SEO: the big wires (PR Newswire, Business Wire, and their syndication partners like Yahoo Finance) nofollow everything. That $800 announcement gets your logo in front of eyes — great for PR — but contributes essentially nothing to your link profile.
We wrote a full market analysis of press release link attribution if you want to see which outlets do what. The short version: assume nofollow until proven otherwise.
Related reading
Erin Herny
Erin runs editorial at DoFollow Press Release. Before that, she spent seven years placing links for SaaS and fintech brands at two boutique SEO agencies. She has personally reviewed more than 4,000 press releases and still gets angry at buried leads.
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