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

Google Updates

Google March 2024 Core Update Finished April 19th (A Week Ago)

Apr 26, 2024 - 4:40 pm
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: April 26, 2024

Apr 26, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Core Update Updates, Site Reputation Abuse Coming, Links, Ads & More

Apr 26, 2024 - 8:01 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Google Publisher Center No Longer Allows Adding Publications

Apr 26, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Tests Placing The Snippet Date Next To URL

Apr 26, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google

Google Breaks Out Googlebot IP Ranges For User-Triggered Fetchers

Apr 26, 2024 - 7:31 am
Previous Story: Taiwan Burger At Google