Check Dofollow and Nofollow Links

You’ve published a guest post, secured a link placement, or spotted a mention on a high-authority site. Now the real question: is that link actually passing SEO value, or is it just sitting there doing nothing for your rankings?

That’s exactly what nofollow and dofollow link checking is for. And once you know how to do it which takes about ten seconds, you’ll never guess at your backlink quality again.

This guide covers what the difference actually means for SEO, every method for checking link types (from browser inspect to professional tools), and how to use that information strategically to build a stronger backlink profile.

What Is a Dofollow Link?

A dofollow link is the default state of any hyperlink. If a link doesn’t have a specific attribute restricting it, it’s dofollow. That’s it.

When Google’s crawler encounters a dofollow link, it follows it, attributes value to the destination page, and passes link equity (commonly called PageRank or link juice) from the linking page to the linked page. This is what makes backlinks one of the strongest ranking signals in SEO, each quality dofollow link is effectively a vote of confidence that Google counts toward your rankings.

In raw HTML, a dofollow link looks like this:

html

<a href="https://yoursite.com/page">anchor text here</a>

No special attribute needed. It just works.

The amount of authority any given dofollow link passes depends on the linking page’s own authority, its relevance to your content, the number of other outbound links on the page, and several other signals. A dofollow link from a highly authoritative, relevant domain is worth significantly more than one from a new site with no traffic. Our post on how Google evaluates high-quality backlinks covers this in depth.

What Is a Nofollow Link?

A nofollow link has the rel="nofollow" attribute added to the anchor tag. This attribute tells search engine crawlers: do not follow this link, and do not pass authority to the destination.

In HTML, a nofollow link looks like this:

html

<a href="https://yoursite.com/page" rel="nofollow">anchor text here</a>

Google introduced the nofollow attribute in 2005, originally as a way to fight comment spam. The idea was to let site owners add links in comment sections or user-generated areas without endorsing those links for SEO purposes.

Today nofollow links are common across a wide range of contexts: blog comment sections, forum posts, social media links, press release sites, certain directory listings, and Wikipedia links. Any site that lets users add links typically nofollows them by default.

One important update that most guides skip: in 2019, Google announced that it would treat nofollow as a “hint” rather than a strict directive. This means Google may choose to follow a nofollow link and consider it in some ranking calculations (particularly from high-authority domains) even though the official signal says not to. It still makes nofollow links less valuable than dofollow ones in most cases, but the absolute binary of “passes no value whatsoever” is no longer entirely accurate.

The Other Link Attributes: Sponsored and UGC

When checking links, you’ll sometimes see two additional attributes beyond nofollow.

rel="sponsored" is used to mark paid links, affiliate links, and advertisements. Google introduced this to give site owners a cleaner way to identify commercial link relationships. For SEO purposes, sponsored links work similarly to nofollow, they signal to Google not to pass link equity as an organic endorsement.

rel="ugc" stands for user-generated content. It’s used for links in comments, forum replies, and community posts. Like nofollow and sponsored, it tells Google these links weren’t editorially placed by the site owner.

When you’re checking a link and see any of these three attributes, the practical SEO implication is the same: the link is less likely to pass full link equity than a clean dofollow link.

Why Checking Link Types Matters for Your SEO

Here’s where this becomes strategically important.

Not all link building effort is equal. If you spend hours securing a guest post placement expecting a valuable backlink, and the published link turns out to be nofollow, the direct SEO impact of that placement is significantly reduced. You didn’t get what you were working toward.

This happens more often than people expect. Some sites nofollow all external links by default. Some apply nofollow only to links in certain sections. Some change their link policy after you’ve already established a relationship. And some placements that were initially dofollow get switched to nofollow over time without any notice.

Regularly checking your backlinks for nofollow status lets you:

Verify that your link building is actually working. Before and after every guest post, outreach campaign, or link insertion, check that the live link is dofollow. If it’s nofollow and you expected dofollow, you have grounds to follow up with the site.

Audit your existing backlink profile. Knowing the dofollow-to-nofollow ratio in your backlink profile gives you an accurate picture of how much link equity you’re actually receiving versus how much is being blocked.

Research prospects before outreach. Before you pitch a site for a guest post or link placement, check their existing outbound links. If they nofollow everything, a dofollow placement there isn’t realistic. That knowledge saves you time and redirects your effort to better targets.

Monitor for changes. A site that was giving you a dofollow link can change its link policy anytime. Monitoring your key backlinks means you’ll catch those changes before they silently reduce your backlink profile’s value.

Check competitor backlinks. When you analyse which pages on a competitor’s site are sending them dofollow links, you’re building a target list for your own outreach. If a publisher gave them a dofollow editorial mention, they’re a real prospect for you too.

This is central to building high-quality backlinks strategically rather than just collecting placements randomly.

Method 1: Check Any Link Using Browser Developer Tools (No Tools Required)

This is the fastest way to check a single link on any page. No extensions, no accounts, no tools required.

Step 1: Open the page where the link appears in any modern browser (Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari all work).

Step 2: Right-click directly on the link text.

Step 3: Select “Inspect” (Chrome/Edge) or “Inspect Element” (Firefox). This opens the browser’s developer tools panel.

Step 4: The HTML for that specific link will be highlighted in the Elements panel. Look at the anchor tag.

If you see something like this, it’s dofollow:

html

<a href="https://targetsite.com/page">link text</a>

If you see this, it’s nofollow:

html

<a href="https://targetsite.com/page" rel="nofollow">link text</a>

If you see rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc", treat it the same as nofollow for practical SEO purposes.

This method is perfect for checking a specific link quickly. It’s what SEO professionals do when they want an immediate answer about one link without running a full tool.

Method 2: View Page Source

An older but still effective method. Press Ctrl+U (Windows) or Cmd+Option+U (Mac) on any page to open the raw HTML source. Then press Ctrl+F and search for “nofollow” to find every nofollow link on the page at once.

This works well for a quick scan of a specific page. It’s less elegant than the inspect method but shows you all links at once rather than one at a time.

Method 3: Browser Extensions for Instant Visual Checking

If you check links regularly, a browser extension is the most efficient workflow. These tools highlight dofollow and nofollow links directly on the page, no clicking, no inspecting, just visual colour-coding as you browse.

NoFollow Chrome Extension (by Mangools): One of the most widely used. It outlines nofollow links in red and dofollow links in a contrasting colour, so you can see the link profile of any page at a glance. Free to install from the Chrome Web Store.

MozBar: Mozbar is a full SEO toolbar that shows page and domain authority metrics, but it also highlights link types as you browse. Useful if you’re doing prospecting and want link type information alongside authority metrics in one view.

Ahrefs SEO Toolbar: Shows SEO metrics for any page and highlights link types. Requires an Ahrefs account for full functionality, but the link highlighting works on the free version.

Link Redirect Trace: Particularly useful when links redirect through multiple steps before reaching the destination. It shows the full redirect chain and the rel attribute at each step.

For anyone doing link building or outreach regularly, installing a nofollow highlighter extension is one of those five-minute setup tasks that saves hours over time.

Method 4: Free Online Nofollow and Dofollow Link Checker Tools

If you want to see all links on a page categorized at once, free online tools are the right choice. You paste a URL, the tool fetches the page, and it returns a categorized list of every link: internal, external, dofollow, nofollow.

Useful free tools for this:

Several free tools are available by searching for “nofollow dofollow link checker” most work by accepting a URL input and returning a breakdown of all outbound links with their rel attributes. These are especially useful for:

Checking a competitor’s page to see which of their outbound links are dofollow (and identifying which sites they trust enough to link to without nofollow).

Verifying your own pages to make sure you’re not accidentally nofollowing internal links that should be passing authority. This is a more common mistake than people realise. We cover the SEO implications in our guide on what is internal linking and why it matters.

Checking a prospective link partner’s page before committing to outreach, to confirm they use dofollow links for editorial placements.

Method 5: Professional SEO Tools for Backlink-Level Checking

For bulk backlink audits, competitive analysis, and monitoring your backlink profile at scale, you need a professional SEO tool. Free checkers handle individual pages. Professional tools handle your entire backlink profile.

Ahrefs: Ahrefs’ Site Explorer shows your full backlink profile with nofollow/dofollow status clearly labelled for each link. You can filter your entire backlink profile to show only dofollow links, only nofollow links, or sort by any combination of attributes. This is the most thorough backlink analysis tool available for this purpose. You can also run the same analysis on any competitor’s site.

Semrush Backlink Analytics: Similar functionality to Ahrefs. The Backlink Audit tool specifically categorises your backlinks and flags links that might be hurting your profile including spammy links you might want to disavow. The nofollow/dofollow breakdown is included in the standard backlink report.

Moz Link Explorer: Shows domain authority alongside nofollow status for backlinks. Useful if you’re already using Moz as your primary authority metric.

Google Search Console: The Links report in Search Console shows which external sites link to yours, but it doesn’t distinguish between dofollow and nofollow. It’s useful for discovering who links to you, but for attribute-level detail you need one of the paid tools.

For a broader breakdown of which tools are worth using depending on your budget and goals, our post on best SEO tools for beginners covers the full landscape.

How to Check Your Own Backlinks for Nofollow Status

If you want to audit the backlinks pointing to your own site, here’s the practical workflow:

Step 1: Export your backlink list. The easiest source is Google Search Console (Links report), or export from Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz if you have access.

Step 2: Open your backlink report in whichever tool you’re using. Look for the “Link type” or “Rel attribute” column.

Step 3: Filter to show nofollow links. This gives you your full list of backlinks that are not passing equity.

Step 4: Review the list. Some nofollow links are expected and fine, social media mentions, directory listings, press releases. What you’re looking for is any link you expected to be dofollow (guest posts, editorial placements, content partnerships) that turned out nofollow.

Step 5: For any mismatched link (you expected dofollow, got nofollow), go back to the actual page and verify using the inspect method. If it’s confirmed nofollow and you expected otherwise, reach out to the site owner.

Step 6: Look at your dofollow-to-nofollow ratio. A natural backlink profile will have a mix of both. A profile that’s almost entirely dofollow can look suspicious. A profile that’s heavily nofollow suggests your link building efforts aren’t producing the SEO value they should be.

Checking Competitor Backlinks for Dofollow Opportunities

This is one of the most practical applications of link type checking and one that directly feeds your link building strategy.

Here’s the workflow: open Ahrefs or Semrush, pull up a competitor’s backlink profile, and filter for dofollow links only. Sort by linking domain authority. What you now have is a prioritised list of sites that have already demonstrated willingness to give dofollow editorial links in your niche.

These are your best outreach targets. They’ve already linked to content similar to yours. They give real dofollow links. You have a concrete reason to reach out, you can reference their existing content and present something that adds to what’s there.

This approach turns competitor analysis into a direct prospecting list, rather than just an interesting research exercise.

Common Mistakes People Make When Checking Links

Checking only the page’s outbound links and not the inbound links pointing to them. A page can link out with dofollow links while receiving mostly nofollow links itself. Make sure you’re checking the right direction for your goal.

Assuming all links on a guest post will be dofollow. Some publishers apply dofollow links to some external links and nofollow others, depending on their editorial policy. Always verify the specific link, not just the general site policy.

Not checking after a live post goes up. The link may have been agreed as dofollow but published nofollow due to a CMS default, a plugin setting, or an editorial decision. Check every placement when it goes live, not when it’s agreed.

Missing multiple rel values. A link can have rel="nofollow sponsored" multiple attributes at once. Any nofollow-equivalent attribute in that list means the link won’t pass full equity. Don’t stop reading after the first attribute.

Forgetting to check internal links. If your own site accidentally nofollows internal links, you’re blocking link equity from flowing between your own pages. Run your key internal links through a checker periodically, especially after CMS updates or plugin changes that might affect link attributes. Understanding the impact of internal nofollow links is covered in our internal linking guide.

Nofollow Links Still Have Value: Here’s What They’re Good For

While dofollow links are the ones that directly impact rankings, writing off nofollow links entirely is a mistake. Here’s what they actually contribute:

Referral traffic. A nofollow link from a high-traffic article can send hundreds of real visitors to your site. That traffic is real regardless of the link attribute. If a nofollow mention on a popular blog sends 500 relevant visitors to your site, that’s valuable.

Brand visibility and topical authority. Being mentioned by authoritative sites in your niche builds brand recognition and topical relevance, even if the link doesn’t pass full PageRank.

A natural backlink profile. A healthy backlink profile has a mix of link types. A profile that’s 100% dofollow looks unnatural real editorial coverage doesn’t work that way. Nofollow links from social media, directories, and community sites are expected and normal.

Indirect ranking effects. If a nofollow link sends traffic to your page and those visitors engage well (reading, sharing, converting) those positive engagement signals have their own influence on rankings. And as mentioned, Google now treats nofollow as a hint rather than a hard directive, so some nofollow links from authoritative sources may still carry some influence.

The practical takeaway: prioritise dofollow links in your active outreach. But don’t turn down or ignore nofollow placements from relevant, high-authority sources.

When You Find a Nofollow That Should Be Dofollow

Say you’ve verified a guest post and the link is nofollow when you expected dofollow. What do you do?

First, make sure you’re right. Check the specific link using the inspect method to confirm it’s actually nofollow, not just flagged by a tool with an error.

Second, check the site’s general linking policy. If every outbound link on the site is nofollow by default, this is their policy, not a specific decision about your link.

Third, if the link should have been dofollow based on what was agreed, reach out to the editor or site owner politely. Explain that the link you discussed appears to have been published with a nofollow attribute, which wasn’t the expectation. Most legitimate publishers will correct this if it was an unintentional mistake.

Fourth, if the site refuses to change it and dofollow was a condition of the placement, factor that into your future work with them. Not every placement is worth pursuing if the link attribute won’t be what you need.

If you want to understand how this all connects to ranking outcomes and why some well-optimised pages still underperform despite having backlinks, our post on reasons your optimised page won’t rank is worth reading alongside this one.

Quick Reference: How to Check Any Link

One link on a page: Right-click the link, select Inspect, look for rel="nofollow" in the HTML.

All links on a page at a glance: Install a nofollow highlighter browser extension.

All outbound links on a page categorised: Use a free online nofollow/dofollow checker tool.

Your full backlink profile with nofollow status: Use Ahrefs, Semrush, or Moz.

A competitor’s dofollow backlinks for outreach prospecting: Use Ahrefs Site Explorer or Semrush Backlink Analytics, filter for dofollow.

Monitoring key backlinks for attribute changes over time: Use a backlink monitoring tool or set up alerts in Ahrefs.

If you want your full backlink profile audited including which links are passing value, which aren’t, and where your best link building opportunities are our free SEO audit covers this as part of a comprehensive review. Our SEO services include ongoing backlink monitoring and strategic link building as standard.

Frequently Asked Questions About Nofollow and Dofollow Link Checking