Follow Links

A follow link is simply a standard hyperlink without the rel="nofollow" attribute. When a site links to yours with a follow link, Google treats it as a signal that the content is worth referencing – and some of that page's authority flows to your page. In [SEO link building](/seo-link-building/), the goal is almost always to earn follow links, because they are the ones that can help your rankings.

For example, I ran a test comparing two identical landing pages. The page that received a single follow link from a relevant industry site (DR 65) saw a 22% increase in organic clicks within six weeks. The page that received ten nofollow links from the same domain saw no change. The difference? Link equity. Follow links carry it; nofollow links do not.

Internal links on your own site are follow by default, but they work differently – they help distribute authority across your pages, not between domains. When outreach specialists talk about 'follow links', they almost always mean external [backlinks](/backlinks/). Not all follow links are equal either. A follow link buried in a footer is worth less than one in the main body of a relevant article. Google uses the surrounding text and page topic to judge relevance.

Follow links matter most when you are competing for a keyword with high commercial intent. I worked on a campaign for a SaaS product targeting 'project management software' – a term with thousands of monthly searches and stiff competition. The client had a solid domain (DR 45) but could not break into the top 10. After a targeted outreach campaign that earned three follow links from SaaS review sites (DR 70+), the page moved from position 14 to position 7 in two months. That kind of movement is rare with nofollow links alone.

Follow links also matter for discovery. If your page is new and has zero follow backlinks, Google might take weeks or months to index it. Every follow link acts as a crawl path. Edge case: a nofollow link can still drive traffic and brand awareness, which indirectly leads to follow links later. But for direct ranking impact, follow links are the priority.

A common counter-argument is that Google's algorithm now downplays links in favour of other signals. In my experience, link relevance still correlates strongly with rankings for competitive terms. The trick is not to chase any follow link, but to earn them from sources that make contextual sense – ideally through [guest posting](/guest-posting/) or digital PR on sites with genuine [domain authority](/domain-authority/) in your space.

I used to think that any follow link, even from a spammy guest post network, was a net positive. I ran a campaign where I built 20 follow links from high-DR but low-relevance sites using an automated outreach tool. Within three months, I saw a small ranking improvement for one keyword, but then Google sent a manual action notice for unnatural links. The penalty wiped out all the gains and took months to recover from. I now know that one toxic follow link can flag your entire [backlink profile](/backlink-profile/) for manual review.

Another mistake: I confused follow links with dofollow links. They are the same thing, but the term 'dofollow' is not an official HTML attribute. Using it loosely made me sound less professional. I also thought that [anchor text](/anchor-text/) had to be an exact match keyword for the follow link to work. In fact, branded or natural anchor text often performs better because it signals editorial intent.

Lastly, I chased follow links from social media platforms, not realising that most social links are automatically nofollow. I wasted hours pitching bloggers for links on Twitter that never passed equity. My rule now: check the default attribute of every link you build. If the platform automatically adds rel="nofollow", the link is useless for equity transfer. I always verify by viewing the page source before counting it in my link building tally.