The easier it is for people to find your website in search results, the more traffic—and sales—you’re likely to get. That’s why competition for search rankings keeps growing. Website owners are constantly looking for strategies to climb higher on search engine results pages, and SEO is one of the most effective tools in the arsenal.
The days of the World Wide Web being filled with keyword spam and content stuffing to grab attention from search engines are long gone.
Today, many brands focus on strictly monitored metrics—like Google search rankings—to stand out online and push their websites onto the first page, ideally securing the top positions in search results.
While most people know that relevant, accurate, and engaging content is essential, fewer realize there’s another equally important factor—DoFollow Links. When used correctly, these links can significantly improve your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages.
So, is it really true? Let’s find out.
Search engine rankings use links as a scoring factor—the more quality points a site has, the higher it can rank. This is a core SEO benefit. Many digital marketers refer to this as “link juice,” which can “flow” through a website’s link structure and boost a page’s authority score.
Because these “points” are so valuable for ranking, earning them has become a primary strategy for most marketers.
To earn these points, marketers use various tactics—posting comments with embedded links on popular posts, building their site’s reputation, or securing backlinks from authoritative websites—all with the goal of linking back to their own site and increasing authority.
In simple terms, a “dofollow” link tells search engines to follow the link to its source, contributing to PageRank. This contrasts with “nofollow” links, which don’t pass ranking value. In HTML, it looks like this:
<a href=”http://www.website.com/” rel=”nofollow”>Link Text</a>
This code links to a target site but tells search engines not to crawl it, meaning no ranking value is passed. While nofollow links are useful for controlling linking behavior, dofollow links remain central to SEO strategy because backlinks from authoritative sites can dramatically improve rankings and brand visibility.
For example, most comments today default to nofollow links. Website owners can choose to add a nofollow tag in blog posts or leave it as dofollow—but whether it passes SEO value depends on the linking site’s decision, which may require direct outreach.
How to Create DoFollow Links
Creating dofollow links isn’t complicated. If your website links to another site without a nofollow tag, search engines will naturally follow the link and count it toward rankings.
Similarly, when adding links to your content, choose authoritative websites to link to. This strengthens your site’s SEO by associating it with credible sources.
If other brands request links from your site—whether in blog posts or on web pages—you may want to use an automatic nofollow tag until you verify the link’s quality. Linking to low-quality sites can harm your rankings.
In short, for external links going out, choose reputable sites and keep them dofollow where beneficial. For inbound links, ensure the linking site is trustworthy; otherwise, use nofollow for protection.
Useful Tools to Check DoFollow Links
If it’s your own website, you can easily check in your CMS admin panel’s HTML view to see if a nofollow tag is present. But what if you want to check another website? How do you know which links are dofollow or nofollow?
Here are some free tools that can help:
Dofollow Link Checker
MozBar
SEOquake
Link Analyzer
Dofollow Link Checker scans all links on a given page and identifies whether they’re dofollow or nofollow. MozBar is a Chrome extension, while SEOquake works on both Chrome and Firefox. Link Analyzer is a standalone tool compatible with any browser. All of these tools are free and provide reliable link analysis.
Are External DoFollow Links Good?
The answer depends on two factors: Where does the link lead? And what benefit will it bring if it’s dofollow? Quality dofollow links signal to search engines that the linked content is relevant, accurate, and up-to-date, passing valuable link juice both from external and internal sources.
In many cases, having a healthy number of dofollow links can help increase traffic and overtake competitor rankings. However, the best practice is to maintain a natural mix of both dofollow and nofollow links. This prevents search engines from perceiving your content as overly optimized and can even result in improved rankings over time.
Business people with block chain cryptography
How Long Does Google Take to Detect a DoFollow Link?
There’s no exact answer. Google’s spiders crawl vast numbers of pages daily, usually detecting new links within 2–4 days of content publication.
If your site has low traffic and most of its dofollow links come from smaller websites, it may take longer. That’s why building a strong backlink profile is important—it can help search bots find and index your pages faster and improve rankings.
DoFollow links remain a vital part of SEO. Using them strategically and in the right volume is the perfect combination for real results. You can easily consult with an SEO expert at the best digital marketing agency to get your site ranking higher on Google.
Krittitee Tongdang
