
You probably have heard about the link attribute (NOT tag!) called “nofollow” by now.
Do you know what the nofollow attribute does? I’ll tell you just in case:
nofollow cripples hyperlinks so that they do not count for Google rankings.
Now we have more of those link attributes! What do they really mean though?
It’s not necessarily what the attributes and Google officially say.
The nofollow history – 20 years of failure
The nofollow attribute was introduced in 2005 as a search industry wide initiative by
- Microsoft
- Yahoo
It was meant to combat SPAM. The attribute was intented to protect us from
- comment SPAM
- forum SPAM
- guest book SPAM.
Yeah, some people still used guest books on their websites back then!
As we know nofollow was a great success and there is no comment etc. SPAM left on the Web!
Just kidding. It was a monumental failure when it comes to the original use case.
It never worked! Comment spam has become much worse during the past two decades.
How you can protect yourself from SPAM in comments
In reality content management tools like WordPress have curbed comment SPAM by using plugins.
- Most WordPress sites are using Akismet and WordPress made a business model out of it.
- Other blogging tools even got rid of comments altogether because of it (think Ghost).
- Many sites outsource their comments to Disqus or Facebook to get rid of that pesky SPAM problem.
On my blogs Akismet and other comment SPAM protection tools catch thousands of SPAM comments every single day.
As Akismet is a paid tool by now I use Antispam Bee SPAM protection on my new blogs.
WordPress used nofollow out of the box on comment links yet it never helped to curb SPAM.
Now WordPress uses the UGC attribute instead on User Generated Content (comments and pings).
Google shoots itself in the foot
Despite nofollow being such a huge failure Google made it mandatory over the years to use it for all kinds of links.
- User Generated Content (UGC)
- widgets
- infographics
that contained links were to use nofollow to make Google ignore those links in its algorithms.
Some website owners were so anxious about getting a penalty from Google that many websites just added nofollow to all their (outgoing) links. Other
people stopped linking out altogether or only linked their owned sites.
The Web only exists because of links. Also the Google algorithm works because of them.
Over the years the Google team has added lots of complexity to its ranking algorithm.
Yet in essence it still counts links and evaluates their value to find out how important a website is.
With nofollow increasingly added all over the place the Google algorithm encountered growing difficulties.
Many links that didn’t require a nofollow authority blocker have been crippled by it.
Yet others that were paid for or otherwise not real endorsements did not use nofollow.
Spammers ignored it no matter how much Google penalized sites that broke the rules.
You don’t have to be the typical Google PhD to realize that they have shoot themselves in the foot.
The so called link graph didn’t work properly anymore and they had to real yon other ranking systems.
Just create great content and get great links
I’m certainly no Google brainiac – just someone who has “created great content” (as Google advised you to) for many years.
Sadly the Google advice to “just create great content” stopped working for me after a few years.
When I stopped getting links my traffic went down.
As my grandma used to say: “without links content stinks”.
Thus even when you create great content you still have to get incoming links to it.
Otherwise it is dead on arrival. It may get some initial 15 minutes of fame on social media but that’s that.
Link building is still the most important aspect of content and social SEO. Everything else is nice to have.
It is called outreach usually or by now often referred to as “digital PR”.
I hear you. Of course the technical SEO best practices need to be taken care of.
Yet they alone won’t suffice. Social and content SEO are where the actual action takes place nowadays.
What do the nofollow, UGC and sponsored link attributes mean officially?
So by now Google stopped supporting the nofollow attribute.
Yes, it has worked for them. Why? Brace yourself! I’ll explain now!
Indeed nofollow was useful to determine which sites are actually performing SEO.
Thus Google was glad to keep it in use despite its catastrophic failure to combat SPAM.
Even its negative effect on the actual Google algorithm did not matter for years..
Yet finally they decided to make nofollow less important and de-emphaisize it.
On the flipside you still admit that you know what nofollow means and that you are into SEO when adding it.
So what? Let that sink in. nofollow does not count anymore. Yet it says something about you!
The actual purpose of the nofollow attribute is to out yourself as an SEO practitioner!
Let’s take a step back and define what the additional link attributes mean officially!
Nowadays Google suggests to use three possible attributes to mark links as less trustworthy:
- nofollow – used for questionable sources
- UGC – used for links beyond editorial control
- sponsored – used for text link ads from sponsors
Yet none of them are taken seriously! They are only used as optional information.
Whether they use it or not to ignore links you mark as nofollow (or UGC and sponsored) is up to Google!
The most important message you send to Google is that you practice search engine optimization voodoo on your site!
Sorry for the old school exaggeration. You get the point though.
Otherwise nofollow is “just a hint” as officials called it. Likewise UGC and sponsored.
They don’t mean much though unless you consider what they really mean.
It’s actually rel=”SEO” – not what it says
As someone who has practiced the often misunderstood art of SEO I got used to reading between the lines.
Yeah, I even made a living from SEO services it for many years.
Google will never tell you the whole truth unless it works for them.
They just say what you need to know so that you do what they want.
Again, you don’t have to be a superhuman Google engineer to realize that it doesn’t make sense to use nofollow in the way they explain it.
It breaks the Web as a whole not just the Google algo. It makes people afraid of linking to other sites etc.
nofollow destroys the foundation of the Web – hypertext.
In the early years of nofollow some “advanced SEO” practitioners tried to use it for so called “PageRank sculpting”.
They used nofollow on their own internal links! Yes, some links would use nofollow so that the others get more “link juice”.
PageRank sculpting was widely hailed as the ultimate onpage optimization technique.
Until one day Google spokesperson Matt Cutts announced in 2009 that it does not work that way.
In reality such link juice would simply evaporate. So you simply hurt your site by using nofollow.
Despite that “nofollow is dead” announcement SEO practitioners still kept using nofollow for all kinds of reasons.
For Google the main reason to keep nofollow remained: identify the sites that consciously practice SEO and that way attempt to manipulate the algorithm.
The nofollow attribute is like a red flag. I know! It’s a surprise to the uninitiated!
True, Google by now openly supports SEO officially but they still struggle with manipulation of all kinds.
Sometimes people even manipulate Google without knowing it simply because Google is still a black box with still mostly unwritten rules that often change.
It even happened to me despite my assumption that I was probably the most ethical SEO out there.
That’s also why Google unilaterally introduced new link attributes to add to the already wide spread nofollow malaise.
As mentioned above you can now flag yourself by also using rel=”UGC” or rel=”sponsored” or both or all three at once.
Now Google at least admits that they won’t probably even use their own link attributes for ignoring your links. They will decide themselves based on other factors.
So even with nofollow added they may follow those links and count them.
In short: you are adding useless proprietary link attributes that only flag yourself as an SEO practitioner!
They are potentially harmful while Google probably ignores those attributes and follows your links anyway.
Bing also announced that it always used nofollow is a mere hint. That’s about almost 15 years late IMHO.
What now? Just ignore these new link attributes and create websites as if Google wouldn’t exist.
Just create great content and get great links.
Do not spend additional effort for flagging yourself as an SEO practitioner.
Let Google and their God-like AI find out themselves. After all they have billions of unpaid taxes to invest in such machine learning.
What rel=”nofollow UGC sponsored” really mean in particular
You don’t believe the red flag theory yet?
Just think of what the link attributes imply in particular. They mean more than they say.
The nofollow attribute means that the site using it
- either links to not trustworthy sources
- or does not check outgoing links
so it can’t be trusted to be trustworthy itself.
UGC means that it’s not an editorial site or that the content is not written by professionals.
Again you get flagged as less trustworthy. This is another negative ranking signal you inflict on yourself.
Last but not least rel=”sponsored” says that the site using it is engaged in bribery for links.
Also it is well aware that it risks a Google penalty by doing that. What else can Google find on such a site?
Does the site really flag all links correctly? Again you tell Google to trust your site less.
Why would you hurt your credibility in such a way? It’s self-sabotage.
So does it make sense to cripple your links and expose yourself as an SEO?
I’d rather spend that time on “just creating great content”!
Of course by 2025 that content needs to be highly helpful.