Dofollow vs nofollow links: what actually matters for SEO

A plain link, `<a href="...">`, is "followed" by default. It passes ranking signal (the thing people loosely call PageRank). `rel="nofollow"` was added by Google in 2005 to fight blog-comment spam, and for years it told crawlers "do not pass equity through this link."

Two things changed in 2019-2020. In September 2019 Google reclassified nofollow from a strict directive to a hint, meaning it may still use those links for ranking and crawling. It also split nofollow into more specific values: `rel="sponsored"` for paid and affiliate links, and `rel="ugc"` for user-generated content like comments and forum posts. From March 1, 2020 these can influence crawling and indexing. You can stack them, e.g. `rel="ugc nofollow"`.

The practical takeaway: a nofollow link is not wasted. It will not reliably move your rankings, but it still sends referral traffic, puts your brand in front of buyers, and frequently triggers a genuine followed link later when someone discovers you and links from their own blog. Count dofollow links toward ranking power; count nofollow links toward discovery and traffic.

Domain Authority (Moz, 1-100), Domain Rating (Ahrefs, 0-100), and Authority Score (Semrush) are third-party estimates built almost entirely from the backlink graph. Google has repeatedly said it has no single "domain authority" metric, so these numbers predict nothing on their own. They are useful as a rough comparison between sites, not as a target.

The scale is logarithmic, which trips up new founders. A brand-new domain usually sits at DR 0-5. Climbing from 0 to 20 is fast, 20 to 40 is moderate work, and 70+ takes years and serious press. Chasing a higher number for its own sake is a trap.

Optimize the inputs instead: the count of relevant referring domains, the real organic traffic of the page linking to you, and topical relevance. A DR 20 link from a developer blog your buyers actually read beats a DR 80 link from an unrelated coupon site. Relevance and a live audience outrank the badge every time.

Real sites are mostly nofollow by volume, social profiles, news mentions, directories, and forum posts, sitting on top of a smaller core of followed editorial links. A profile that is 100% dofollow exact-match links looks engineered and is a footprint, not a flex.

Referring domains matter far more than total backlinks. Fifty links from one domain count roughly as a single vote with steep diminishing returns; fifty links from fifty separate domains is fifty votes. Track unique referring domains, not raw link totals.

Two discipline rules. Keep exact-match commercial anchors ("best invoicing software") under roughly 10-20% of your profile; the rest should be your brand name, the bare URL, and generic anchors like "here." And keep velocity steady. Acquiring 500 links in a week on a two-month-old domain is the single most obvious spam pattern there is.

Most directory listings are nofollow, and that is fine if you are there for discovery and referral clicks rather than link equity. Product Hunt links are nofollow; G2 and Capterra profile links are typically nofollow; Crunchbase and Wikipedia are nofollow. People still launch on them because the referral traffic and the press that follows are worth far more than the link attribute.

Sort directories into three tiers. First, relevant curated directories your actual buyers browse, real referral traffic plus occasionally a dofollow link. Second, big general directories, mostly nofollow but high traffic. Third, "submit to 500 directories" packages, which are spam, occasionally harmful, and never useful. Skip tier three entirely.

An honest example from the directory I work on: codenation.dev is a SaaS and developer directory on a recovered domain at roughly DR 16. Free listings are nofollow, so you get discovery and referral traffic; paid featured or sponsored listings are dofollow, a real but small topically relevant followed link. Set expectations accordingly. One DR 16 dofollow link is a minor signal, not a ranking lever. Its genuine value is qualified referral traffic from founders and developers, topical relevance from sitting next to other SaaS, and a discovery surface. A useful gut check for any paid listing: would you still want it if the link were nofollow and passed zero equity? If the audience is right, yes. If the only reason is "dofollow," a single DR 16 link is not worth paying for.

Start with your own hygiene. Tag outbound paid and affiliate links with `rel="sponsored"`, user comments with `rel="ugc"`, and never nofollow your own internal links. Then launch where your buyers gather: Product Hunt and BetaList (nofollow but strong referral), plus two or three relevant communities or subreddits.

Pick 8-12 directories worth your time, a mix of niche SaaS/dev listings and two or three large ones, and ignore mass-submission tools. For earned coverage, pitch journalists through Featured, Qwoted, or SourceBottle (HARO/Connectively shut down in December 2024). One placement in a real publication outweighs fifty directory entries. Ship one genuinely useful free tool or a small data study, because that is what passively earns followed links, and build comparison/alternative pages plus integration partner pages, since partners often link back dofollow.

Measure the right thing. Track unique referring domains and referral traffic in Search Console and your analytics, not your DA number. A realistic target for a new SaaS is 30-50 relevant referring domains within six months, most of them earned rather than placed. Hit that with a natural dofollow/nofollow mix and the authority score takes care of itself.