Dofollow vs Nofollow vs Sponsored Links: What Each One Means in 2027

Dofollow vs nofollow is the first link question every founder meets, and most answers are either vague or too confident. If you wonder what is a dofollow link, how nofollow vs dofollow links differ, and where sponsored vs nofollow fits in 2027, this guide gives you the short answer, the HTML, what Google actually says, and a way to check any link in under a minute.

The short answer

A dofollow link is an ordinary link. It has no special instruction, so search engines are free to follow it and may use it as a signal. A nofollow link carries a hint that you do not vouch for the target or do not want to pass credit to it. Sponsored and UGC are more specific versions of that hint, for paid links and user-written links.

One point surprises people: there is no `rel="dofollow"`. "Dofollow" is an informal label, not a real attribute. A link is "dofollow" simply because it carries none of the other three values.

What the three attributes look like in code

Here is the same link written four ways:

<a href="https://example.com">Example</a>
<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Example</a>
<a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored">Example</a>
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc">Example</a>

You can combine values with a space, for example rel="ugc nofollow". You can also add safety values such as noopener for links that open in a new tab. Those do not change how search engines treat the link; they are about browser behaviour.

If you read the first line again, you have the answer to "what is a dofollow link" in practice: a link written like any other, with no qualifier.

What Google says

Google's page on qualifying outbound links gives three recommendations:

• Use sponsored for links that are "advertisements or paid placements."
• Use ugc for user-generated content links, "such as comments and forum posts."
• Use nofollow when the other two do not apply and you do not want Google to associate your site with the linked page or crawl from your site to it.

It also says links marked with these attributes "will generally not be followed," and notes that the linked pages may still be found through other means, such as sitemaps or links from other sites.

Google's spam policies add a firm line. They list "buying or selling links for ranking purposes" as link spam, including paying money or trading goods or services for a link. They also say that buying and selling links for advertising or sponsorship is not a violation as long as those links are qualified with nofollow or sponsored.

The 2019 change: from instruction to hint

For years, nofollow was treated like a strict instruction. In September 2019 Google announced that it was changing how it treats the attribute. According to secondary coverage of that announcement, nofollow, sponsored and UGC became hints for ranking, which took effect straight away, and hints for crawling and indexing from 1 March 2020. Google did not require sites to change existing links, though it recommended sponsored where it fits.

The dates above come from secondary coverage of Google's 2019 announcement, so confirm them against Google's own post, linked at the end, before you quote them.

What does "hint" mean in practice? It means Google may choose to use a nofollow link as a signal, even though by default it does not pass credit in the usual way. Google has not published exactly when it does that. So treat nofollow as "usually not counted for ranking," not as "never, guaranteed."

Choosing between sponsored and nofollow

The practical rule for sponsored vs nofollow is short:

• Money or goods changed hands → sponsored.
• A user wrote the link (comment, forum post, profile) → ugc.
• You do not want to vouch for it and neither of the above applies → nofollow.
• You chose it freely because your readers will find it useful → no attribute.

If you are unsure between sponsored and nofollow for a paid link, Google's own guidance says sponsored is preferred, and nofollow is still accepted.

Here are some real-world cases:

• A sponsored post or ad on a blog. sponsored.
• An affiliate link in your review. sponsored, since you earn from it.
• A link inside a blog comment. ugc.
• A link in a forum signature. ugc.
• A link to a competitor you mention but do not endorse. nofollow is reasonable.
• A link from your docs to a source you trust. Normal, no attribute.
• A link to your own pricing page. Normal, no attribute.

Do dofollow links matter more than nofollow links?

In general, yes, for ranking purposes. A normal link from a relevant, trusted page is the kind of signal search engines were built around. That does not make nofollow links worthless. The honest comparison of dofollow vs nofollow is this:

Links are also read by people. A nofollow link on a busy page can send more actual visitors than a dofollow link on a page nobody opens. For a young product, referral traffic and credibility may be worth more than a faint ranking nudge.

How link value works, in plain words

Search engines started by treating a link as a vote: if many pages point to a page, it is probably worth reading. Link-based scoring systems such as PageRank were built on that idea. Votes from trusted, relevant pages count for more than votes from pages nobody trusts.

That is why people care about the link type. A normal link from a trusted page can pass some of that trust to the page it points to. A qualified link says "do not treat this as my vote," either because you were paid, a user wrote it, or you simply do not know the target.

Three details are worth keeping in mind:

• Relevance beats the attribute. A normal link from an unrelated page rarely does much. A mention on a page that your future customers actually read is worth more.
• Placement matters. A link in the main text of an article is a stronger editorial sign than one in a footer shared across thousands of pages. Google's spam policies list "widely distributed links in footers or site templates" among link spam examples.
• Sharing the value. A page that links out to many places splits whatever it has to give. So a link from a page with three outbound links usually carries more than one from a page with three hundred. This is a reason to prefer small, curated pages over giant lists, and no tool can give you an exact figure.

None of this requires a calculation. It simply explains why one good mention can matter more than a hundred forgotten ones.

Common mistakes with link attributes

Adding nofollow to every external link. Some site owners do this out of fear. It makes your site look closed off, and it removes the benefit of citing good sources. Reserve it for links that need it.

Leaving paid links unqualified. If you take money for a link, or get free goods in exchange for one, qualify it. It is a one-word fix.

Using sponsored for links that are not paid. Labelling a genuine editorial link as sponsored takes away its value without reason.

Forgetting user-generated areas. If your site has comments, reviews, profiles or a forum, links there should be ugc or nofollow by default, or they become an easy spam target. Many platforms handle this for you, but check yours.

Building links only for the attribute. Choosing where to be listed only because the link is normal leads to weak placements. Start from whether real people will see you.

Checking once and never again. A plugin update, a theme change or a site migration can add or remove attributes across a whole site. If a link matters to you, check it every few months.

Trusting a tool without a spot check. Backlink tools disagree with each other. Verify the links that matter by hand.

Six myths worth dropping

Myth 1: "Nofollow links are useless." They can bring visitors, mentions and discovery. Many of the world's biggest sites use nofollow on outbound links by default, so a large share of the links you earn will be nofollow whether you like it or not. I could not verify the exact list for each site, so check the ones you care about with the method below.

Myth 2: "Only dofollow links count." When people compare nofollow vs dofollow links, they often forget that the 2019 change happened. Since then, Google treats nofollow as a hint, not an absolute wall. It is still wise to treat a nofollow link as unlikely to pass ranking credit, but "only dofollow counts" is too blunt.

Myth 3: "A page full of dofollow links is a good sign." Quality matters more than the attribute. A dofollow link from an irrelevant or spammy page can do nothing, or worse.

Myth 4: "There is an ideal ratio, such as 60 to 70 percent dofollow." Some guides quote figures like this. I found no source from Google for any ratio, and the ones I saw were unsourced. A natural profile has a mix because links appear in many places. Do not chase a number.

Myth 5: "Nofollow stops a page from being crawled or indexed." Not reliably. Google says linked pages may be found by other routes. If you need to keep a page out of search, use the right tool: a noindex rule on the page, or a password. A link attribute is not a lock.

Myth 6: "Nofollow and noindex are the same." They are different. nofollow on a link is about that one link. noindex is about whether a page may appear in search results. There is also a page-level robots meta tag that can carry nofollow for every link on a page, which is a separate thing again.

Internal links: leave them alone

Everything above is about links to other sites. For links inside your own site, the usual advice is to keep them normal. Your own pages should help each other get found, and adding nofollow to them rarely helps. If you want to keep a page out of search, use noindex or restrict access, not a link attribute.

If you build a blog like this one, link related posts together with ordinary links. For example, the guide to free dofollow backlinks for SaaS covers where to look for links, and this one covers what the attributes mean.

How to check whether a link is dofollow or nofollow

You do not need a paid tool. The method below takes under a minute.

Method 1: View source.

1. Open the page that contains the link.
2. Press Ctrl+U (Cmd+Option+U on a Mac) to open the source.
3. Search for the destination address.
4. Read the rel attribute on that <a> tag. If there is none, or if it contains only values like noopener, the link is normal.

Method 2: Inspect.

1. Right-click the link and choose Inspect.
2. The <a> tag is highlighted. Read its attributes.

Inspect shows the page after scripts have run, which matters for the next point.

Method 3: A browser extension. Several free extensions highlight nofollow links on a page. They are quick for scanning a long page, but check one link by hand first to be sure the extension is right.

Method 4: A crawler or backlink tool. For many pages, a crawler such as Screaming Frog can list links with their rel values, and backlink tools let you filter by link type. These cost money for larger jobs, and the numbers differ between tools, so use them for a pattern, not as truth.

One catch: JavaScript. If a link is added by script after the page loads, the source in Method 1 may not show it, while Inspect will. Search engines can read many scripted links, but a link in the plain HTML is the safest.

Why this matters for a young product

A new product has few links and a lot to prove. Three things follow.

1. Ask what you are actually getting. When you list your product on a directory, an award site or a roundup, ask whether the link is normal, nofollow or sponsored, and whether anyone reviews the listing. A link is worth more when real people read the page.

2. Do not over-read a single link. One normal link will not change your rankings. A page that is useful, clear and mentioned in many places builds slowly. Treat each link as a small piece.

3. Be careful with paid links. If you pay for a link, Google's policy says it should be qualified. Selling or buying unqualified links to affect rankings is the thing the policy is written against.

How CircleSaaS handles it

Here is a concrete example, so the ideas above are not abstract. On CircleSaaS:

• A free tile links to your site with a nofollow link at first.
• Once you place the CircleSaaS badge on your site and it is verified, the free tile's link turns normal (dofollow).
• Paid tiles use normal links.
• The badge itself is explained in how to add the badge.

I want to be careful about what that means. A normal link from a directory is not a guarantee of anything. A directory is one page among many, and a search engine decides for itself whether to count the link. And because paid tiles carry normal links, you should read the purchase as paying for visibility on the board and referral visits first, with any search benefit as a possible extra. Google's guidance says paid links should be qualified, so I would not build a plan that depends on a paid directory link for rankings, mine included.

If you are comparing where to list, the best startup and SaaS directories explains how to judge them, and the same questions apply: is the link qualified, is the page real, and is anyone reading it?

What may change in 2027

Nobody outside the search engines knows, so take this as informed guessing.

• The hint model is likely to stay. The direction since 2019 has been to read signals in context, not to follow a strict rule.
• Mentions without links may matter more. Search engines already read plain-text mentions of a brand. I cannot say how much weight they give them.
• Quality filters are likely to keep tightening. Spam policies already target links made mainly for ranking, so a few relevant links should age better than many weak ones.
• Attribute choices will stay your responsibility. If you publish links for money or from users, qualifying them is cheap and removes a risk.

If any of these turns out wrong, I will update this post.

Quick reference

Use no attribute when: you chose the link freely and you vouch for it.

Use `sponsored` when: money, goods or a commission are involved.

Use `ugc` when: a user wrote the link.

Use `nofollow` when: you do not want to vouch for it and the others do not fit.

Check a link by: view source, search for the address, read the rel value.

Do not: invent rel="dofollow", chase a ratio, or treat nofollow as a lock.

Frequently asked questions

Do nofollow links help SEO at all?

They can help indirectly through visitors, mentions and discovery. Google treats them as hints, so they may occasionally be used as a signal, but you should not count on it.

Is a link without a rel attribute always dofollow?

In practice yes. That is what the informal word means. The page could still be blocked or ignored for other reasons.

Should I nofollow all my outbound links?

No. Link normally to sources you trust. Use the attributes for paid, user-written or untrusted links.

Can I use both sponsored and nofollow on one link?

Yes. You can list several values, separated by spaces. Google's guidance says sponsored alone is preferred for paid links.

Are affiliate links sponsored?

Yes. You earn from them, so sponsored fits.

Does a nofollow link on a big site help more than a normal link on a small one?

It depends. The big site may send more visitors and give more credibility. The small site's normal link may pass a little more signal. Neither is decisive on its own.

Can Google penalise me for having only dofollow links?

I found no statement from Google about this. The claim appears in several guides without a source. A natural mix is normal, but I would not chase it.

Do internal links need nofollow?

Usually not. Keep them as normal links.

Summary

Dofollow vs nofollow comes down to whether you vouch for a link: normal links you stand behind, sponsored for paid ones, ugc for user-written ones, nofollow for the rest. What is a dofollow link? One with no restricting attribute. Weigh nofollow vs dofollow links by relevance and real visitors, not by a ratio, and remember that in sponsored vs nofollow, Google prefers sponsored for anything paid.