Thread: Are NoFollow Links Bad for your Website? Can they help?

I tried researching on this topic but I keep getting mixed messages. So are NoFollow Links bad for your website? Meaning, they hurt your search engine rankings. Can they help with your search engine rankings?

Thanks!

Nofollow just tells Google to ignore the link as far as SEO / backlinks go. So they aren't going to hurt your SEO, they just won't help. The reason Google implemented this tag is because of course people began abusing the tip "get as many backlinks to your website" lesson. So people began flooding links everywhere.... their YouTube descriptions, channel homepage, etc. So they created this tag to use in common areas that could get abused by people obsessed with dropping links.

That's something I have been curious about too. I always feel that having nofollow links do no harm, but lurking in my mind is the thought that the search engine may well penalize ... not true, just a phobia!

Nofollow links do not harm your site but it is also right that these links are not helpful for your site.

I have read a post in the blog of a link building service and they said that NoFollow links DO help. I have ever tested this so I don't know if it is true or not. I think it sounds more natural if you get links from both DoFollow and NoFollow sites.

I would think that they help but not that much. The helping part being that you have a link that someone may or may not click on. As for rankings, they don't count.

As said they don't hurt your rankings. I don't know why but a lot of people say that they are bad for rankings. Is there no middle ground any more?

Originally Posted by Genite

Nofollow links do not harm your site but it is also right that these links are not helpful for your site.

Yes, Nofollow never harm your site rankings and it is not at all considered by Google. But, i don't agree that it is not at all helpful to our site, why because a nofollow link which is placed in a famous and high traffic receiving websites will generate a decent traffic to our site even though there is no value for Google SERP. So, NoFollow links are useful at these times. Thanks.

What I found out when I did some research.
if you only get dofollow links that might be bad. Google loves natural link building. If all you get is dofollow links that's not natural. Dofollow and nofollow links are best.

So no they don't hurt but just dofollow links can hurt.

No-follow links dont help in getting a backlink but can help you in getting traffic.

Originally Posted by Jay

I tried researching on this topic but I keep getting mixed messages. So are NoFollow Links bad for your website? Meaning, they hurt your search engine rankings. Can they help with your search engine rankings?

Thanks!

No-Follow links are not bad for your website; they just don't directly help raise your website's rankings in the search engines. However, they can indirectly help raise your website's rankings in the search engines by bringing quality traffic to your website.

I use Yahoo Answers to get some extra visitors for my Blog and website. As you know Yahoo answers has "Nofollow" link. but it can indirectly help increase my website's rankings in the search engines.