What is the rel='nofollow' attribute and when to use it in HTML
Aug 03, 2025 am 01:24 AMUse rel="nofollow" (or rel="sponsored"/rel="ugc") when linking to untrusted, paid, or user-generated content to avoid passing SEO value; 1. Apply rel="nofollow" to user-generated links in comments or forums to prevent spam; 2. Use rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" for paid or sponsored links to comply with search engine guidelines; 3. Use rel="nofollow" for external links to untrusted sites to protect your site’s reputation; 4. Rarely, use nofollow internally to block crawling of non-public pages, though robots.txt or meta tags are preferred; modern alternatives include combining rel="nofollow sponsored" for clearer context, and search engines treat these as hints rather than strict rules, helping maintain your site’s link integrity by ensuring only trusted, editorially approved links contribute to SEO rankings.
The rel="nofollow"
attribute in HTML is a link relationship value that tells search engines not to follow a hyperlink or pass any SEO (search engine optimization) value from the source page to the destination page.

In simpler terms, when you add rel="nofollow"
to a <a></a>
tag, you're telling search engines like Google:
"This link exists, but don’t use it to influence the ranking of the linked page in search results."
When to Use rel="nofollow"
You should use rel="nofollow"
in specific situations where you don’t want to endorse the linked page or when the link is not editorially controlled. Here are the most common use cases:

1. User-Generated Content (UGC)
Links posted by users in comments, forums, or reviews should typically be marked as nofollow
. This helps prevent spam and discourages people from abusing your site to boost their own SEO.
Example:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow">Check out my site!</a>
This is common on blog comment sections. Without
nofollow
, spammers would flood comments with links to manipulate search rankings.
2. Paid or Sponsored Links
If you’re being paid to include a link (e.g., in a sponsored post), you must use rel="nofollow"
or the newer rel="sponsored"
to comply with search engine guidelines (like Google’s).
Example:
<a href="https://sponsoredbusiness.com" rel="sponsored">Visit our sponsor</a>
Google recommends using
rel="sponsored"
specifically for paid links, butrel="nofollow"
is still acceptable.
3. Untrusted or External Links
If you're linking to a site you don’t trust or can't vouch for, using nofollow
protects your site from being associated with low-quality or potentially harmful content.
Example:
<a href="https://unknown-site.com" rel="nofollow">External resource</a>
This is useful when linking to third-party sources in community-driven content.
4. Internal Use Cases (Rare)
Sometimes you might use nofollow
internally — for example, to prevent search engines from crawling login pages, admin areas, or duplicate content. But this is less common and often better handled via robots.txt
or meta tags.
Other Link Relationship Values (Modern Alternatives)
Google supports more granular attributes now:
rel="sponsored"
– for paid or sponsored linksrel="ugc"
– for user-generated content like commentsrel="nofollow"
– general use when you don’t want to pass ranking credit
You can even combine them:
<a href="https://example.com" rel="nofollow sponsored">Ad link</a>
Google treats nofollow
, sponsored
, and ugc
as hints, not strict directives, meaning they usually won’t follow or credit the link, but they might in some cases.
Bottom Line
Use rel="nofollow"
(or sponsored
/ugc
) when:
- The link is not a natural editorial endorsement
- It’s paid, user-submitted, or untrusted
- You want to avoid potential SEO penalties or manipulation
It’s a simple but powerful tool to maintain the integrity of your site’s link profile.
Basically: if you didn’t personally trust or earn that link, mark it appropriately.
The above is the detailed content of What is the rel='nofollow' attribute and when to use it in HTML. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!

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