For this reason, it is so important to understand the concept of two widely used tags when the topic is link building: dofollow and nofollow links. In today's article I will show you how and when you should use them.

What is the importance of links?
Before we delve into the subject, let's talk about links in general.

Since the beginning of Google, the act of receiving links from other sites to yours (mainly relevant and authoritative sites on the web) is one of the main ranking factors.

In addition to receiving links from other sites, it is essential to include internal links (to your own website) and external links (to other websites) in your content.

Internal links help in the link juice, generating a connection between the pages and the Google robots and transmitting authority between them. But google also considers external links, which show that the site is part of the online community and feeds quality link building.

What is a dofollow link?
Dofollow links are like credibility votes. The pages that receive this type of link, also receive part of the authority of the web that has pointed to them. The more dofollow links a page receives, the more important it appears to search engines and, therefore, the greater the chance that it will appear in good positions in the results.

Dofollow works for both internal and external links, in the end, the links you point to your own site also help you improve your ranking in search results.

By default, all links are dofollow, that is, it is not necessary to add a rel = "dofollow" attribute. If you were to edit its HTML, it would be:

<a href="https://blog.example.com">Your blog</a>

When should you use link dofollow?
Use the "dofollow" when you are going to indicate relevant sites, that you really want to guide your reader because you think they can add valuable content to it.

Search engines appreciate that you provide useful information, so do your best to link to interesting websites. Remember that the Google algorithm, for example, does not give importance to the quantity, but to the quality of your links.

If you link to a relevant article, your article gains relevance. If you help the user, your page will be well positioned. It's that simple.

To make it clear, Google expressly prohibits the use of "dofollow" in paid posts.

What is a nofollow link?
The difference between dofollow and nofollow links is that links that receive the nofollow attribute tell search engines the opposite. It is basically a simple way to tell Google or other search engines not to follow a certain link.

Nofollow serves as a way to control manipulation and improper positioning in search results. Google has created the attribute to avoid spam, due to the existence of many untrustworthy links, and thus facilitate the optimization of safe sites.

When you add nofollow to your link, what you do is not transmit PageRank (authority) to the destination, even though users can access it.

Nofollow links have the following structure:

<a href=”https://blog.example.com” rel=”no follow” >Your blog</a>

When should you use link nofollow?
Use nofollow on paid links, this is a recommendation from Google.

Suppose you start a paid advertising campaign on sites, portals and blogs, with all banners linking to your page. This is considered Spam or Black Hat, since backlinks are not gained through the quality of your site but because you have invested money.

In this way you can harm the positioning of your site in search engines. Therefore, always use the nofollow in the case of paid links and avoid the penalty.

If you don't trust the content, use nofollow. If you can't or don't want to rate the content of the pages you've linked to on your site (for example, user comments or guestbook information), you should use nofollow on the links. This also serves to discourage spammers from attacking your site and will help prevent your page from passing PageRank to "suspicious neighbors" on the web.

Other examples for the use of nofollow:

Duplicate content.
Sponsored links.
Affiliate Links.
Login or registration links.
Comments on forums.
Download links.