Google Hints That Useful Nofollow Links Won’t Pass Weight (Or Much Of It)

Danny Sullivan from Google hinted the other day on Twitter that links that are nofollowed, even if they are useful links, are unlikely to pass much weight or any weight at all. In short, despite Google changing how they see the nofollow attribute in 2019, links with the nofollow attribute on them are probably not worth much of anything in terms of SEO.

Danny said on Twitter “In the past, as the post explains, we just wouldn’t use the links at all.” “The change meant we’d consider them if there was some usefulness to be found, though the hint means aren’t likely to give them as much, if any, weight,” he added.

Here is the specific context:

In the past, as the post explains, we just wouldn’t use the links at all. The change meant we’d consider them if there was some usefulness to be found, though the hint means aren’t likely to give them as much, if any, weight.

— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 1, 2022

Last we heard on this nofollow link attribute change, there was actually no change taken, no action was changed with this policy change. We’ve asked numerous times afterwards and still, I have not heard anything new.

Danny added this as well:

Thank you for the clarification, Danny. 🙂

— Praveen Sharma (@MusingPraveen) June 1, 2022

I find this nofollow SEO discussion topics fascinating, specifically around what Google says about it and what SEOs believe about it. Don’t you?

Forum discussion at Twitter.