Follow Links And No Follow Links: The Seo Implications

If you’re new to the confusing world of search engine optimisation, you might have come across the terms ‘follow’ and ‘no-follow’ and wondered what these refer to and why it is significant. We’re here to break it down for you and articulate the difference between the two. You will begin to see just why experts specialising in effective and affordable SEO make such a fuss over whether a link is one or the other.

The Concept of Backlinks for Search Engine Optimisation

For the purposes of this article we will assume that you already know why links are such an important and integral part of any long term optimisation strategy.  For this reason we jump straight into an overview of how this works.

Google determines the relevance and trustworthiness of a site using priority algorithms. Amongst other things, these analyse the backlink profile of a site. Inbound links generate ‘SEO points’ if you will. These points are often loosely referred to as “link juice” by many professionals in the optimisation business. Link juice flows from one site to the other and acts as a sort of endorsement. A page therefore with a good mix of backlinks is viewed favourably by Google. This is especially true when they come from sites that are trustworthy such as that of reputable newspapers or leading online industry journals. This is why it is so important for SEO - a strong backlink portfolio can help a page earn a good quantity of quality link juice and, as a result, rise up the Google rankings, gaining greater exposure and earning more traffic.

What is a Follow Link?

These are links that are “visible” to Google – they send link juice to the recipient page and help it gain a higher ranking in SERPs as a result.

Since these are so valuable for optimisation purposes, search agencies are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to acquire them. Experts aim to create great content that will be noticed by sites with excellent credentials and that will direct their visitors to this content. This might take the form of an infographic, an engaging article or a viral YouTube video.  An additional tactic that can help to augment these methods is the strategic placement of content on reliable platforms such as blogs, directories, forums and other sites. 

However, some site owners do not wish their sites to be exploited as a means of creating backlinks. Content created specifically for this purpose can often be of a poor quality and website owners prefer not to be seen to endorse or provide a platform for badly written content. Also, spam in forums and comment sections with clumsy links thrown in specifically for SEO purposes is a particular risk. This is a recognised issue and a blanket ‘no-follow’ policy may be adopted in order to deter this kind of practice.

What is a No-follow Link?

These links do not allow link juice to flow. Google takes no notice of these so there is no direct SEO benefit to be had from them. Whether links are no-follow or not is completely at the discretion of the website owner. Some sites will have a no-follow policy across the entire site. Others will fully or partially allow follow links, whilst some may offer the opportunity for content creators to earn them by first producing a certain amount of high quality content.

While these offer no SEO benefit to a site, it does not necessarily mean they have no value at all. If they are well-placed in a relevant blog, forum or comment section, they can still direct good quality traffic towards the site or page in question, which increases the chances of earning more of the right type of leads and sales.

How do you know if they are one or the other?

Right-clicking a web page and selecting ‘View page source’ will show you the HTML code of the page. For those of you who do not understand code, do not worry, fortunately you do not have to. A no-follow link is indicated by a line of code that looks like this:

<a href=”http://www.website.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Link Text</a>

So simply search ‘nofollow’ using a highlighting tool and see where it appears in the view source. Alternatively, MozBar is a useful free browser extension that you can download.  It easily highlights the links that appear on a page and tells you whether they are SEO friendly or not.

Conclusion

Ultimately, a healthy backlink profile is a well-balanced one that includes links from a good variety of sites deemed to be trustworthy by Google. SEO experts understand this crucial point and many offer affordable SEO packages that implement a strategy to achieve this. Effective but affordable SEO is the best way to grow your site’s online visibility in a cost-effective way. Whilst no-follow links have value on their own, the importance of a good range of follow links to the SEO strength of a site is undeniable.

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Kit Jones works for LeadGeneratorsDigital, a successful and professional SEO agency. London is home to many online marketing companies, but LeadGeneratorsDigital is the one to choose if your business needs a boost. Their content marketing skills and comprehensive SEO packages promise to not only improve your webpage rankings, but also the overall quality of your site.