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

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Video Recaps

Google Volatility, Bing Generative Search, Reddit Blocks Bing, Sticky Cookies, AI Overview Ads & SearchGPT

Jul 26, 2024 - 8:01 am
Google

Google Gemini Adds Related Content & Verification Links

Jul 26, 2024 - 7:51 am
Other Search Engines

SearchGPT - OpenAI's AI Search Tool

Jul 26, 2024 - 7:41 am
Search Engine Optimization

Google's John Mueller: Don't Use LLMs For SEO Advice

Jul 26, 2024 - 7:31 am
Google

Google Search With Related Images Carousel Below Image Box

Jul 26, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google Maps

Google Local Book Online CTA For Call Business

Jul 26, 2024 - 7:11 am
Previous Story: Taiwan Burger At Google