Avoid nofollow on internal links

Rule Details

rel="nofollow" was introduced to tell search engines not to follow a link or pass PageRank through it. Google's rel-attribute guidance (opens in new tab) applies to outbound trust decisions, not your own architecture, so internal nofollow weakens the same flow covered in internal-links.

Code Example

<!-- ❌ Bad: Internal link with nofollow — blocks PageRank flow -->
<a href="/products/shoes" rel="nofollow">View Shoes</a>
 
<!-- ✅ Good: Internal link without nofollow -->
<a href="/products/shoes">View Shoes</a>
 
<!-- ✅ OK: nofollow on an external, untrusted link -->
<a href="https://untrusted-source.com/article" rel="nofollow">Source</a>

Why It Matters

Adding rel="nofollow" to internal links prevents PageRank from flowing to those pages while providing no benefit over simply omitting the attribute. Google’s 2019 note on evolving nofollow (opens in new tab) is the clearest modern explanation for why PageRank sculpting is no longer a valid rationale.

What nofollow Actually Does

When Googlebot encounters rel="nofollow" on an internal link, it may still crawl the target URL (Google now treats nofollow as a "hint" since 2019), but PageRank does not flow through the link. The result:

• The target page receives less internal link authority
• Its ability to rank for competitive queries is diminished
• The blocked PageRank is not redistributed elsewhere

Correct Alternatives

When nofollow on Internal Links Is Legitimate

There are very few cases. One edge case: a large user-generated content site may add rel="nofollow ugc" to links in user profile bios pointing to other pages within the same site, if those profiles are untrusted. Even then, rel="nofollow" alone still passes no PageRank.

Audit Command (Screaming Frog (opens in new tab))

1. Crawl → Links → Filter by Link Type: Internal
2. Filter Follow: No (nofollow internal links)
3. Export and review each case

Automated Audit

// Example: find internal nofollow links in parsed HTML
const links = document.querySelectorAll('a[href]')
const domain = 'example.com'
 
const internalNofollow = Array.from(links).filter(a => {
  const isInternal = a.href.includes(domain) || a.href.startsWith('/')
  const hasNofollow = a.rel.split(' ').includes('nofollow')
  return isInternal && hasNofollow
})

Exceptions

• Staging, utility, login, account, or internal search pages may intentionally use different crawl or index signals if they are not meant to rank.
• Temporary migration states can produce noisy intermediate signals; flag the live production URL pattern, not one-off transition artifacts.
• When redirects, canonicals, robots directives, or indexability signals conflict, fix the strongest final signal first instead of reporting every downstream symptom as a separate blocker.

Standards

• Use these references as the standard for the final search-facing HTML, metadata, and crawl behavior.
• Check the implementation against Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links with rel before treating the rule as satisfied.
• Check the implementation against Google Blog: Official nofollow link attribute announcement before treating the rule as satisfied.

Verification

Automated Checks

• Inspect rendered HTML and HTTP headers to confirm the expected metadata or crawlability signal is present.
• Test the affected URL with Google Search Console or equivalent tooling where relevant.
• Re-crawl a representative page set after deployment.

Manual Checks

• Confirm the change does not create conflicting canonical-url, robots, or structured-data signals.