DoFollow VS NoFollow – Whats the Difference?

Dofollow and nofollow are the link attributes attached to a link on any website to assist the search engine about its quality. Webmasters use this service heavily to tell search engines whether the link posted on their website is a reliable one or not. It helps the search engine to determine if the website wishes to link their page to the mentioned link, so that the visitors could have more information about their desired topic.

The dofollow link on a website means that it thinks that a link is credible enough to be listed on their website and they would recommend other users and search engine robots to follow this link. This is great for the link which is followed because this would increase its traffic and page rank in Google, on the other hand no harm would be done to the one who mentions this link.

The NoFollow attributes state that the link would be mentioned on the webpage, but the owner does not think its credible enough to be followed. This attribute is generally for the commenting section and advertising, when the website is not aware of the content on the website they are linking to.

DoFollow links for website that are blacklisted by Google would be harmful for the publisher, as it would result in the decrease of their own page rank. So it’s advised that only follow those links which you know would not harm your own page rank.