Nofollow checker

See which links on a page are followed and which carry nofollow, sponsored or ugc, plus any page-wide robots rule that quietly overrides them all.

Nofollow vs dofollow, hands on

Tick the attributes below and watch how the same link changes meaning. The cable turns dashed whenever the link stops being an endorsement.

<a href="https://example.org/guide" target="_blank">trail maps</a>

A normal followed link: you’re vouching for the target and it can pass ranking signals (often called “dofollow”, though no such attribute exists).

Opens a new tab. Modern browsers imply noopener for target="_blank", but adding rel="noopener" keeps older ones from letting the new tab control yours.

How Google reads rel values today

Until 2019, nofollow was a strict instruction. In September 2019 Google introduced sponsored and ugc and announced that from 1 March 2020 all three would be treated as hints: signals it takes into account, not commands it must obey. In practice:

  • Label paid and affiliate links sponsored (or nofollow). This is the one that matters for staying inside Google’s spam policies.
  • Use ugc on links your users write, so comment spam doesn’t borrow your reputation.
  • Use nofollow for anything else you link to but don’t want to vouch for.
  • Don’t nofollow your own internal links to “sculpt” PageRank. It hasn’t worked since 2009: the equity is simply dropped, not redistributed.

Bing and other engines honour the same attributes. A page-level <meta name="robots" content="nofollow"> or an X-Robots-Tag: nofollow HTTP header applies to every link on the page, which is why the checker reads both.

Questions people ask

How do I check if a link is dofollow or nofollow?

Paste the page URL above. Every link is listed with its rel attribute: links with no nofollow, sponsored or ugc value are followed (“dofollow”). The tool also reads the page’s meta robots tag and X-Robots-Tag header, which can nofollow every link at once.

What is the difference between nofollow and dofollow?

A dofollow link is simply a normal link with no rel qualifier; there is no rel="dofollow" attribute. A nofollow link carries rel="nofollow", which tells search engines you are not vouching for the target. Google treats nofollow as a hint since 2020, so it may still crawl or consider the link.

When should I use rel="sponsored"?

On any link you were paid for or received something in exchange for: ads, sponsorships, affiliate links, free products given for review. Google’s guidelines say paid links should carry sponsored or nofollow; unmarked paid links can be treated as link spam.

What is rel="ugc"?

It marks links inside user-generated content such as blog comments and forum posts. Many CMSs add it (often together with nofollow) to comment links automatically.

Can I combine rel values?

Yes. rel="nofollow sponsored" or rel="ugc nofollow" are valid; values are space-separated. Combining with noopener or noreferrer is also fine, as those only affect browser behaviour.

Does this check whether a backlink to my site is nofollow?

Yes: enter the page that links to you and filter for your domain, or use the backlink verifier, which checks up to 10 linking pages at once and reports follow status for every link to your domain.

More link tools on this bench