SEO glossary
Dofollow link
A dofollow link is an ordinary link with no attribute limiting it — the default state, which search engines may follow and count as a signal toward the page it points to.
There is no such attribute as rel="dofollow". The word was invented to name the opposite of nofollow once that existed, and writing it into your markup does nothing at all. Every link is dofollow until you mark it otherwise.
What they pass is not a fixed quantity. A followed link from a page that few people visit and few sites link to passes close to nothing; one from a widely-cited page on a relevant site is the thing link building is actually for. Counting followed links without weighing where they come from produces a number that moves without meaning.
The ratio is the diagnostic worth watching. Profiles that are almost entirely followed links are unusual — real ones accumulate plenty of nofollowed links from comments, forums, social profiles and press mentions along the way. An all-dofollow profile reads as built rather than earned, which is what a spam score is trying to tell you.
Common question
- Should I ask for dofollow links specifically?
- Asking a publisher to change an attribute rarely works and signals you are chasing signal rather than readers. Aim for links on pages people actually reach, and take the attribute you get.
Check this on your own site
- Backlinks
Every individual link, with anchor and quality signals
- Referring Domains
The domain-level roll-up, strongest sites first
Definitions are the easy part
The free plan opens every tool with 500 credits and no card, so you can see these numbers on your own site rather than in an example.
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