Google: Rel External, Noopener & Noreferrer Do Not Impact Your SEO

May 4, 2021 - 7:11 am 0 by

Links Google

Google's John Mueller confirmed that using a rel=external, rel=noopener and/or a rel=noreferrer have no impact on your Google search rankings or SEO. John said on Reddit that there is "no effect" by adding those link attributes to your hyperlinks.

The question on Reddit was "What effect do rel='external' backlinks have on SEO?" John replied "No effect." He then added that "some sites use it to display the link a bit differently (usually class=external though). Also rel=noopener & rel=noreferrer don't have any SEO effect, they're usually done for security / privacy reasons. (Reading https://mathiasbynens.github.io/rel-noopener/ , apparently browsers now implicitly add rel=noopener automatically for links that open in new tabs - TIL)."

You can add a lot of markup to your site and links but Google does not support or use a lot of it. For any markup you want to use and you are interested in how Google uses it or not, it must be listed in the Google Developer documents for it to be supported.

Forum discussion at Reddit.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
- YouTube
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 27, 2025

Mar 27, 2025 - 10:00 am
Google Updates

Google March 2025 Core Update Finished Rolling Out

Mar 27, 2025 - 8:37 am
Google

Google Search About This Data Hyperlink

Mar 27, 2025 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Goes After Spam Practices vs Spam Content - Doc Change

Mar 27, 2025 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Working Through Google Business Profiles Support Requests

Mar 27, 2025 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Event Search Results With Share, Add To Calendar, Similar Events, Venue & Nearby

Mar 27, 2025 - 7:21 am
Previous Story: Taiwan Burger At Google