What is a Dofollow Link?
A dofollow link is any hyperlink that does not contain the "nofollow," "UGC," or "sponsored" attributes. These links can be followed by search engine crawlers and transfer link equity (also known as "link juice") to the linked website, which influences the page rankings.
Here's what a dofollow link looks like in HTML code:
<a href="https://www.ranktracker.com">Ranktracker</a>
It’s important to note that if a page has a “nofollow” meta directive at the page level, all links on that page automatically become nofollow.
Despite being widely used, "dofollow" is not an official term since there's no "dofollow" link attribute. These links are more accurately referred to as "followed" links.
Why are Dofollow Links Important?
Dofollow links are essential for your backlink strategy for several reasons:
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Crawlability: Dofollow links help search engine crawlers discover more of your content by following the links from one page to another.
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Link Equity: These links pass link equity to the destination page, which is one of the most important Google ranking factors. This helps improve the organic search rankings and visibility of the linked pages.
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Traffic: In addition to improving rankings, dofollow links can also drive referral traffic to your website from the linking site.
How to Find Dofollow Links on a Page?
1. Use “Inspect” in Your Browser
To check whether a link is dofollow or nofollow, right-click on the link and select “Inspect” in your browser. This will open the page's source code with the current element highlighted. If there's no "nofollow" attribute in the code, the link is a dofollow link.
2. Highlight Dofollow Links with Ranktracker SEO Toolbar
Instead of checking links manually, you can use the Ranktracker SEO Toolbar (a free extension for Chrome and Firefox) to highlight all dofollow (or any other type of links) on the page.
How to Find Dofollow Links to Your Website?
When reviewing backlinks to your website, it’s crucial to differentiate between dofollow and nofollow links. Google's tools, such as Google Search Console, do not allow this differentiation.
To identify which of your backlinks are dofollow, you can use Ranktracker’s Site Explorer. Follow these steps:
- Open Site Explorer: Go to Ranktracker's Site Explorer.
- Backlinks Report: Navigate to the Backlinks report or the Referring domains report.
- Apply Filter: Use the filter to show only dofollow links.
This will provide you with a list of all the dofollow links pointing to your website, helping you understand and manage your backlink profile more effectively.
For more information on managing your SEO efforts, check out the Ranktracker Blog and our SEO Guide.
