Dofollow link

A dofollow link is a normal hyperlink that passes ranking credit, often called "link equity", from one page to another. It's the default: every link is dofollow unless it's explicitly tagged otherwise. These are the links that actually help a page rank.

There's no rel="dofollow" attribute in HTML. "Dofollow" is just the name people use for a plain link that hasn't been told not to pass credit.

Dofollow vs nofollow

The opposite is a nofollow link, marked with rel="nofollow", which tells search engines not to pass ranking credit to the destination. Google also has more specific tags, rel="sponsored" for paid or affiliate links and rel="ugc" for user-generated content like comments. Google now treats all of these as hints rather than strict rules.

Why dofollow links matter

A dofollow backlink from a relevant, trusted site is one of the strongest off-page signals in SEO. It acts like a vote of confidence, and some of that site's authority flows to your page. Quality beats quantity by a wide margin: one editorial link from a respected industry site outweighs dozens from low-value directories.

A healthy link profile mixes both

A natural backlink profile has plenty of nofollow links too, from social posts, forums, and news comments. An all-dofollow, keyword-stuffed profile looks engineered and can backfire. Never buy dofollow links to game rankings; that violates Google's spam policies.

Want to know which links you've earned and where the gaps are? Edward's free audit reviews your link profile alongside the rest of your on-site health.