Google announced in September 2019
Announcementthat it would officially update the rules for Nofollow links on March 1. So, what impact does this have on our Google SEO efforts, and what should we do?
When do these attributes and changes go into effect?All the link attributes, sponsored, ugc and nofollow, now work today as hints for us to incorporate for ranking purposes.For crawling and indexing purposes, nofollow will become a hint as of March 1, 2020.Those depending on nofollow solely to block a page from being indexed (which was never recommended) should use one of the much more robust mechanisms listed on our Learn how to block URLs from Google help page.
What is Nofollow?
Nofollow links refer to hyperlinks with the rel=„nofollow“ attribute in the code. These links do not affect a website„s search engine ranking because Google does not pass PageRank through them.
Just like when we insert links using the Classic Editor in WordPress Posts, it's optional. In this update, Google has added two new attributes to nofollow: sponsored and ugc.
What impact does this have on Google SEO?
Initially, we used nofollow on links to tell search engines not to crawl them, so they wouldn't pass link equity. However, after Google's new nofollow rule update, for links with the nofollow tag, including those with sponsored and ugc attributes, Google will decide for itself whether to ignore or crawl the link. Therefore, for our Google SEO efforts, the best practice is to follow Google's rules: use the correct link attributes—add sponsored for paid links, ugc for comment links, and still add the nofollow attribute for links where you don't want to pass equity. As for how Google judges these links, let Google decide. We just need to ensure that every link in the article appears naturally and that the article is valuable.
At the same time, Naiba noticed that the Astra Theme I use has automatically added the ugc attribute to URLs in the comment section. If your theme doesn't support this yet, it's best to handle it manually. As for the specific impact of Google's link attribute update, we'll need to wait until after March to continue observing and see what substantive effects it actually has.
So, what should you do if you want to prevent Google from indexing a specific page?Sometimes we use nofollow to prevent Google from indexing a page, but clearly, that won't work now. The correct methods Google provides to block indexing are: 1. Use
robots.txt to disallow crawling; 2. Add a noindex tag.
If you are using an
SEO Plugin, you can set the noindex tag when publishing a Post.
References:- https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/09/evolving-nofollow-new-ways-to-identify.html
- https://www.seozac.com/seo-tips/nofollow-as-hint/
- https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/96569?hl=zh-Hans
Just like when we insert links using the Classic Editor in WordPress Posts, it's optional. In this update, Google has added two new attributes to nofollow: sponsored and ugc.
At the same time, Naiba noticed that the Astra Theme I use has automatically added the ugc attribute to URLs in the comment section. If your theme doesn't support this yet, it's best to handle it manually. As for the specific impact of Google's link attribute update, we'll need to wait until after March to continue observing and see what substantive effects it actually has.So, what should you do if you want to prevent Google from indexing a specific page?Sometimes we use nofollow to prevent Google from indexing a page, but clearly, that won't work now. The correct methods Google provides to block indexing are: 1. Use robots.txt to disallow crawling; 2. Add a noindex tag.
If you are using an SEO Plugin, you can set the noindex tag when publishing a Post.References:
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