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How to Fix Internal Nofollow Links in WordPress

How to Internal Nofollow Links on WordPress? Internal Nofollow links affect your website SEO. If some internal links carry the “nofollow” attribute, then it enables the search engines to not pass the SEO values or rankings to your linked pages.
So, we have to fix the internal nofollow links on wordpress site, so our website get SEO optimized, gain organic traffic and high visibility.
Read this guide to identify and resolve the internal nofollows links on the WordPress website.

What is a Nofollow Link?

A nofollow link is link that tells search engine to not pass link authority to webpage, you are linked to. You can set any nofolow link, by add rel="nofollow" attribute. Links or backlinks are crucial search engine ranking factors.
When you link it with external site, search engine take it as ranking signal and small portion of authority of your site to other page.
So, there is a need to fix these links quickly

Example of a Nofollow Link

<a href="https://example.com/page" rel="nofollow">Example Link</a>

This example, shows rel="nofollow" attribute, that tells search engines to ignore the links while calculating rankings. It prevents your linked page to get SEO benefits from the link.

When is the Nofollow Attribute Used?

Fix Internal Nofollow Links WordPress

  1. User-Generated Content (UGC): The nofollow links are commonly used in comment sections, forums, and other areas where users generate the content. It prevents spam and manipulation of rankings by using low-quality links.
  2. Paid Links: The no follow attribute are used to paid links, to avoid passing artificial link equity. Google puts a penalty on such sites that participate in paid links networks, so we have to applied the nofollow attribute. It protects your site from manual and algorithmic penalties.
  3. Untrusted Content: If you generate content from an untrusted source or link it with a low-quality site, then you must use nofollow attributes so the search engines do not crawl your web pages or do not fall in rankings. Ensure to vet sites before linking out.
  4. Affiliate Links: Marketers are suggested to use nofollows links to prevent passing PageRank.

Why Use Nofollow Links?

Nofollow links help to prevent SEO rankings affected by spammers, adhere to Google guidelines, and control link equity.
Here are its benefits,

  • Prevent SEO Manipulation: The nofollow links avoid your search engine rankings to manipulated by black hat SEO tactics or spammers.
  • Comply with Guidelines: Google always ranks the paid links through sponsored content. So, using nofollows links helps you to prevent your website from artificially inflating rankings.
  • Control Link Equity: Nofollow links control link equity flow on your site. It prevents the flow to passed to web pages, that you do not want to rank higher.

SEO Impact of Nofollow Links

fix nofollow links and improve SEO
Nofollow links prevent the link equity to passed to linked page, and do not affects SEO rankings. So, it plays a vital role in terms of SEO.
Let us look at the SEO impact on Nofollow links,

  • Discovery and Indexing: The nofollow links are used by search engines to discover and index pages.
  • Referral Traffic: Nofollow links can drive traffic. When users click on these links, it drives traffic to your website, even search engines ignore those pages.

How to Identify Links with the Nofollow Property

Here are steps you should follow to identify internal links with the nofollow attribute:

  1. Right-click on the webpage: Open the webpage on your browser and right-click the page to locate the link.
  2. View the page’s source code: From the menu, click on View Page Source or Inspect (depending on your browser).
  3. Search for the link in the HTML code: In the source code window, press Ctrl + F (Windows) or Cmd + F (Mac) and search for the nofollow link by pasting the URL or some text of that link.
  4. Check for the rel="nofollow" attribute: After finding find link in the HTML code, see if it consists the rel="nofollow" attribute. It shows you that the link has the nofollow property.

How to Resolve Nofollow Attributes in Outgoing Internal Links

If you found nofollow attributes in internal links and you want to fix it, then here are guides you should follow. First, ensure that you are not using nofollow for SEO purposes.
Once you confirm, here are further steps you should follow:

  1. Access the Page Editing Mode:
    • Log in to your WordPress dashboard.
    • Go to the page or post where the internal link has a nofollow attribute.
    • Tap on the Edit option to enter to editing mode of the page’s content.
  2. Switch to Code Editing Mode:
    • In the code editor, change the Text or Code mode. The mode is indicated by a <> or Text tab in your editor. It permits you to see and edit the HTML code of your webpage content.
  3. Locate the Nofollow Link:
    • Now, you can see the link in question in the HTML code. You can search for the URL or locate the rel="nofollow" attribute.
  4. Remove the Nofollow Tag:
    • Once you locate the link with the rel="nofollow" attribute, you should simply remove it from the code to fix this error.

    Before:

    <a href="https://example.com/" rel="nofollow">Example Link</a>

    After:

    <a href="https://example.com/">Example Link</a>
  5. Save and Publish:
    • After removing the nofollow attribute, click Update or Publish to save the changes.

You can use SEO plugins like Yoast or RankMath plugins to easily find nofollow links and fix this issue.

FAQs about to Fix Internal Nofollow Links

A nofollow link refers to a hyperlink that instructs search engines to ignore it, meaning they will not pass any link equity to the specific page. Hence, the linked page will not have any impact on the search ranking of the original page’s website.

Internal nofollow links are important for a website’s technical SEO. Even though should be ignored as files on wiki pages , it’s crucial for the SEO value to be correctly allocated for the internal linking structure within the website.

The nofollow attribute is most often used for untrusted external sources, paid and affiliate links, as well as user-generated content to prevent any possible SEO malpractice.

Nofollow links are useful as they help to manage the flow of spam, ensure that as a site owner, there is adequate control on how SEO is manipulated or not.

You can find these links by reviewing the source code of your page and looking for the rel=”nofollow” tag within your HTML code.

To delete the nofollow attribute, go to the HTML editor of a particular page where the hyperlink is located, find rel=”nofollow” and erase the attribute from the tag.

Yes, they are essential for the effective distribution of link authority for SEO purposes in addition to making sure your website abides by Google rules.

While nofollow links are not detrimental to SEO in themselves, improper implementation and oversaturation could stop valuable pages from receiving link equity.

It is a good idea to regularly audit nofollow links, especially after new content changes have been made or new SEO strategies put into effect.

Pro SEO Tip

Regularly audit your website for nofollow links and remove them from internal pages where they aren’t necessary. By doing so, you ensure that your site benefits from full SEO value, enhancing its authority and organic search visibility.

Conclusion

In the internal link nofollow removal process of a WordPress website, it is necessary to insert nofollow attributes at the correct locations. If unchecked, those links can cause a website not to optimally make use of its internal architecture, stifling the overall SEO strategy of a website. Internal links with the nofollow attribute set will pass no SEO value to the linked page and removing that attribute will ensure that SEO value is passed correctly within the internal architecture of the website. This process ensures that a site not only receives organic traffic, but it also immensely improves the chances of a site content being crawled and indexed by the various search engines. Such processes performed periodically usually lead to a healthy website. In this case, it ensures the site is healthy and optimized for search engines.

This article is a valuable resource for anyone looking to nofollow SEO their internal links within a WordPress site. The completion of this task ensures that the website has a better ranking on Google, Bing, or any other search engine. Also checkout Spexo theme, SEO Optimized WordPress Theme.

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