Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Domain Authority and nofollow links?
-
Hello,
I'm wondering, are 'nofollow' links from websites with high domain authority beneficial? Would they boost our own DA?
In essence, I'm wondering if there is added value (other than visitors clicking the link) to being linked to by a 'nofollow' link.
Thanks!
-
Great - thanks for the info guys!
-
Yep, having a natural link profile is what it is all about. No follow and follow links, social media links, text and website links, forum and blog links. It's all comes together in the link graph overall, as a whole - and allows the search engines to calculate.
No follows, don't actually pass any 'juice' on a link level, but having these signals allows search engines to calculate the nofollow into the variable, and give weight in itself.
It's a wonderful thing

-
NoFollow links are highly beneficial, if you take Rand Fishkin's point of view (which I'd strongly recommend).
Basically a NoFollow link comes from forums, comments and other online activity which shows that not only are you purely trying to build backlinks, you're actively participating in the community.
Obviously Follow are essential for your SEO "juice", but a combination of NoFollows shows that you're not only fetching for rankings, your website actually has relevance to the wider community. You may not get a direct 1:1 benefit like a Follow link, but Google can still see the DA and PA that a NoFollow is coming from, and can index that just as readily (even if it is in a completely different way).
P.S. This is a somewhat contested opinion, so I'd add the disclaimer that this is what I think.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Backlinks vs External Links vs Referral Links vs Outbound links
Hello all, I was just wondering if you could explain the difference between all the links above? I'm confused as they all seem to be the same or similar and I would just like to clearly know what distinguishes them from eachother. Thanks for your help, Jayne
Link Building | | NCOREGSEO0 -
How many links per week/month should a link building campaign acquire?
I am running a linkbuilding campaign for my company. I am mostly focusing on guest blogging opportunities and responding to emails from HARO. How many links would I have to acquire each week or month to be considered doing a good job over a 6 month or a year time period? Thank you,
Link Building | | fersu0 -
I just uncovered a massive 500+ domain PBN linking to competitors
As the title, some competitors I've been watching are using a PBN they (or their agency) have built. I'm looking to get some discussion on how you approach situations like this - do you just report all of the domains to Google and pray they do something? There are 4 sites I'm looking at, all competing in the same niche with very similar websites (different branding and content, but essentially the same pages). I thought all were related, but after Excel-ing all the domains to see which overlap I've found that there's several sets; PBN 1 covers 117 domains that link to competitors A, B & C. Signaling to me that these are owned by the same person. PBN 2 links together B & C with 30 domains, PBN 3 is just C with 40 domains. PBN 4 is just B with 105 domains. PBN 5 is just A with 10 domains. PBN 6 is D by itself with more than 340 domains. Signaling to me that this one probably isn't owned by the same person. It looks like new domains are added to these PBNs every week and this has been going on for quite some time. Now, I'm fully against use of PBNs that don't use authentic websites that provide value, and I can't find any of these sites that aren't just a basic WP template with a single-word text logo followed by spun content. This is a goldmine, because according to Ahrefs these sites are pulling in well over 500,000 monthly visitors between them, and these links make up the majority of each site's link profile. If these networks were to crumble, that would open up a big opportunity for more authentic sites to rank well. How would you recommend to tackle this? Do I find example URLs and write reports for each of the 500+ domains or are there better ways of working through this?
Link Building | | Leads.Bz0 -
Are stackoverflow links follow or nofollow?
I've tried to find the answer to this question myself, but I've found differing opinions. The conclusion I've come to is that Stackoverflow allows follow links when the user that posts the link has sufficient reputation or if the link receives user validation. Has anyone else here used Stackoverflow.com that knows the answer to this question? 🙂
Link Building | | RG_SEO0 -
Linking to sites that link to porn or casinos, my site getting penalized?
I have some link exchanges with some sites to get web traffic but when i ran the bad neighborhood link checker, i found that one site links to some casinos and another site has one link to a porn site. Is this getting me penalized? should i remove the links to these sites? Thanks, Ron
Link Building | | Ron100 -
How many links with page authority to beat competition if we already score 62
How many links with page authority do I need to beat or get closer to competitor with page score 78 and domain authority score 72, if we already score 68 on page and 62 domain authority. This is in one of many beauty product markets. I ask because there is a company offering me for $80 each 10 links with higher than 70 page score (up to 80) and higher than 74 domain score (up to 86). All the other factors: number of links and social are almost the same for our website and the competitor's
Link Building | | beehappy1 -
What's the difference between follow and nofollow links?
I understand this may be a really dumb question and from my understanding there is a piece of code in some url's that tell search engines not to follow that link. I am interested in finding out what the purpose of nofollow links are and how they apply to search rankings. Thanks for the help
Link Building | | A2890