Can Nofollow Links Help SEO? Let’s Take a Look at Some Case Studies
The debate about nofollow vs. do-follow linking has been raging for years. In reality, the topic is a bit complex. Looking at some facts will help clear things up.
“you’d rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl the linked page from, your site”.
Notice the word “rather”? Clearly, the nofollow attribute is not a strict directive. In fact, Google has clarified that they will treat these types of links as a ‘hint’.
Let’s break this down into different SEO considerations and provide some case studies to glean more insight.
Page Ranking
When Adam White wanted to rank his blog for the keyword “backlink software” he took a nofollow approach. He purchased nothing but nofollow links on high-ranking authoritative sites. In doing so, he was able to progress his ranking from #19 all the way to # 1. He leveraged the high-ranking of other sites by backlinking to his own. It can certainly be the case that nofollow links from authoritative sites outperform do-follow links from non-authoritative sites.
In another example, Ahref studied 44,589 SERPs to better understand correlations between page ranking and backlink metrics. Part of the report provided data on the number of backlinks as compared to the number of do-follow backlinks, and showed the overall backlink correlation was stronger. This illustrates that in terms of ranking, the contribution of backlinks can come from more than only the do-follow types.
So it seems nofollow links can help page ranking.
Indexing
SurveyMonkey did a test to gauge if nofollow links can lead to indexing. On their 404 page, they placed one nofollow link to a page not indexed by google. Within 48 hours the page was indexed.
In fact, in January of 2022, Google’s Search Advocate John Mueller made it clear that nofollow certainly does not equal noindex. When asked if nofollow would stop indexing, he answered “it doesn’t mean that we will never index that page. So if you really want a page to be blocked from indexing, make sure it has a noindex on it.”
So, nofollow links can lead to indexing.
Nofollow Links Can Bring You Direct Traffic
The SEMrush study Ranking Factors 2.0 analyzed 17 different ranking factors and concluded that direct traffic had the most noticeable correlation.
The key here is content relevance. If you can get your content on high-ranking, authoritative sites with users interested in the subject and provide them with compelling content, you increase the chances of the reader following an outbound link to your site, nofollow or not.
Having direct traffic is great, but also, according to the data, this direct traffic can benefit your page ranking in addition to bringing higher conversions.
Nofollow Can Turn Into Do-follow
A Frac.tl case study syndicated “Your Face as an Alcoholic” with amazing success, placing content on top-tier publishers that have site-wide policies of attaching only nofollow backlinks. The results were outstanding and created many do-follow links in the process.
More than 900 stories, including features on The Huffington Post and New York Daily News
Nearly 30 percent of the additional placements were do-follow links
An impressive 14,368 social shares
Once again, quality content placed on high-ranking sites, even with only nofollow links, can contribute to positive page ranking.
Natural Looking Link Profiles Include Nofollow
A 2017 Ahref study estimated that 67% of links are nofollow. Natural link profiles include nofollow links, not just do-follow.
No one wants to be penalized by Google for any reason. Unnatural link profiles have the potential to lead to trouble. Beyond that, however, it is important to understand that there is no way search engines will completely ignore such a pervasive part of the internet. Nofollow links have their purpose in the internet ecosystem, and they do provide information search engines can utilize.
Conclusion
We have presented good evidence that suggests nofollow links can, directly and indirectly, help with your SEO efforts. Backlink referrals from authoritative and high-ranking sites serve worthwhile marketing purposes, and data suggest that it would be a mistake to dismiss nofollow links altogether. Particularly because so many well-known blogs, news outlets, social media, and other sites have nofollow policies towards link attachments, you may still want to utilize these sites’ popularity and high page ranking for your benefit, including improving SEO.
