Google Changes NoFollow rules

Google considers links in its formula for ranking webpages. In SEO, links are an important metric. Google follows links to their destinations. For example, if 100 people link to your page on “Pineapple on pizza”, then Google will consider that it might have more authority than my page with only 1 link pointing to it. Now, if Martha Stewart linked to your page – that has more weight than if I did… it becomes quite complicated! But one thing we know for sure – links matter.

This is why so many sponsors and partners want you to link to their site. If they are paying you to link to them – that is called a sponsored link. And if you link to all your friends hoping that Google will like them more, and they link back to you, that is considered a link scheme – do not do that!

If you are paid to place a link, you must tell google that this is a biased link; it is paid for; it is not your organic, unsolicited opinion. For all those situations, you must use the “nofollow” tag on the link. This will let Google know that it is, in some way, benefiting you.

• If you get a car in exchange for the link? Yes, you must ‘nofollow’ it.
• If you get a link back to your site in exchange for a link? Yes, that requires a ‘nofollow’ tag.
• If you get $10 to link to a friend’s site? Yep – that still needs a ‘nofollow’ tag.
• If you get ‘future consideration’ in exchange for a link to their site? Yessireebob. A nofollow tag please.

What happens if you do NOT use a no-follow tag?

If Google catches you, you may get a warning, or you may just get de-indexed. All your pages will disappear from Google’s search results. This has happened to clients before and I can attest – it takes months to get it back.

In March 2020, Google rocked the SEO world, by announcing that it was unilaterally changing the way it crawled and considered those links. There were new details: you can now tag ‘ugc’, ‘sponsored’ OR ‘nofollow’… see Moz’s article for the particulars.

And through the years since, there has been a few more announcements from our frenemies at Google. But it remains the same in principle:

1. You must disclose if you benefit from a link.
2. Google does not have to obey you. If you tag something as ‘nofollow’ google may still follow it. That is up to them. But you are no longer liable for sending them on a rabbit trail.

Remember all SEO is based on being the best result for somebody’s query. Google WANTS to show you if you are the best result! Keep doing what you do!