Google announced in September 2019
announcementthat it would officially update the rules for Nofollow links on March 1st. So, what impact does this have for us doing Google SEO, 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 ourLearn how to block URLs from Googlehelp page.
What is Nofollow?
Nofollow links refer to hyperlinks in the code that have the rel=„nofollow“ attribute. 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 an optional setting. Google has also added two new attributes to the nofollow attribute this time: sponsored and ugc.
What is the impact on Google SEO?
Initially, we used nofollow for links to tell search engines not to crawl them, so they wouldn't pass ranking weight. 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. So, for us doing Google SEO, 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 weight. As for how Google judges these links, let Google decide. We just need to ensure every link in the article appears naturally and the article is valuable.
At the same time, Naiba noticed that the Astra Theme I use has automatically added the ugc attribute to URL links in the comment section. If your theme doesn't support this yet, it's best to handle it manually. The specific impact of this Google link attribute update will only become clear after continued observation post-March.
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 doesn't work now. The correct methods Google provides to block indexing are: 1. Use
robots.txtto disallow crawling; 2. Add a noindex tag.
If you are using an
SEO Plugin, you can set the noindex tag when publishing a Post.
Reference:- 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 an optional setting. Google has also added two new attributes to the nofollow attribute this time: sponsored and ugc.
At the same time, Naiba noticed that the Astra Theme I use has automatically added the ugc attribute to URL links in the comment section. If your theme doesn't support this yet, it's best to handle it manually. The specific impact of this Google link attribute update will only become clear after continued observation post-March.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 doesn't work now. The correct methods Google provides to block indexing are: 1. Userobots.txtto disallow crawling; 2. Add a noindex tag.
If you are using anSEO Plugin, you can set the noindex tag when publishing a Post.Reference:
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