Here’s why, and when “nofollow” links might still be relevant (though not directly for ranking growth):

DoFollow Links: The SEO Powerhouses

• Pass Link Equity (Link Juice): When a search engine crawler encounters a “dofollow” link, it understands that you are essentially vouching for the linked page. This “vote of confidence” is called “link equity” or “link juice,” and it’s a crucial ranking factor. The more high-quality, relevant dofollow links you get from authoritative websites, the more likely your own site is to rank higher.
• Improve Authority and Trust: Search engines see dofollow links as a sign of your website’s authority and trustworthiness within your niche. The more reputable sources link to you with dofollow links, the more authoritative your site appears to Google and other search engines.

NoFollow Links: Not for Direct Ranking, But Still Have Value

A “nofollow” attribute (rel="nofollow") tells search engines not to pass link equity to the linked page.

Here’s when and why you’d use them:

1. Paid Links/Advertisements: If you’re being paid to include a link on your site (e.g., sponsored content, advertisements), Google’s guidelines require you to use rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", or rel="ugc" (for user-generated content). Failing to do so can result in penalties.
2. Untrusted Content/User-Generated Content (UGC): For comments sections, forums, or any content where users can post links, it’s best practice to use rel="nofollow" or rel="ugc". This prevents spammers from exploiting your site to build links and protects your site’s reputation from linking to potentially harmful or irrelevant content.
3. To Sculpt PageRank (Less Common Now): In the past, some SEOs would use nofollow internally to try and “sculpt” PageRank, directing link juice to specific important pages. However, Google has indicated that this practice is largely ineffective now; link equity still gets “used up” even if it’s not passed.
4. Avoid Crawling Specific Pages: You might use nofollow on internal links to pages you don’t want search engines to crawl or index (e.g., login pages, thank you pages), although noindex meta tags or robots.txt are generally more effective for this purpose.

Why You Don’t Want Nofollow for Ranking Growth

If you’re trying to grow your rating, it implies you want to improve your search engine rankings. Since nofollow links explicitly tell search engines not to pass link equity, they won’t directly contribute to improving your organic search visibility or domain authority in the same way dofollow links do.

The Bottom Line

Focus your link-building efforts on acquiring high-quality, relevant “dofollow” backlinks from authoritative websites. These are the links that genuinely move the needle for your search engine rankings.

While nofollow links won’t directly boost your SEO, they can still bring other benefits like:

• Referral Traffic: People clicking on a nofollow link can still come to your site.
• Brand Awareness: Being mentioned on popular sites, even with nofollow links, increases your brand’s visibility.
• Diversified Link Profile: A natural link profile includes a mix of dofollow and nofollow links. An all-dofollow link profile can sometimes look suspicious.

So, in summary: If your primary goal is to grow your search engine ranking, prioritize getting dofollow links to your website.