Google: Do Follow - Rel="Follow" Is Not A Thing

Apr 28, 2021 - 7:41 am 1 by

Google Follow

Google has a few link attributes that allow you to tell Google not to pass any link signals from the link to the site you are linking to. There is the classic rel="nofollow" and the newer rel="ugc" and rel="sponsored". But no, there is no do follow or rel="follow" attribute.

Yes, sometimes SEOs will call a link that does not have any of the rel="nofollow" and the newer rel="ugc" and rel="sponsored" attributes on them a "do follow link," but no, Google does not say, this link has a rel="follow" on it, we must follow it. Google ignores an attribute that reads rel="follow".

So if you put a rel="nofollow" and a rel="follow" on the same link, then Google will ignore the rel="follow" and respect the rel="nofollow" directive.

John Mueller of Google confirmed this on Twitter saying "We don't use "follow" - it's ignored like any other unused attribute."

Forum discussion at Twitter.

 

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