Nofollow became a hint rather than a directive in 2019, so Google may or may not use those links for ranking at its discretion — the flat claim that they pass nothing is out of date. They also contribute brand mention signals (see brand mentions). However, a profile dominated by nofollow links (over ~70%) signals link-building tactics relying on weak sources — wiki edits, comments, social profiles. The fix is diversifying source types toward editorial sites that pass follow links.
For natural editorial profiles: Follow: 60-80% Nofollow: 20-40% Excessive nofollow indicators: - > 70% nofollow = source mix is weak - Heavy social profile links (LinkedIn, Twitter — all nofollow) - Wiki contributions (all nofollow) - Forum signatures (all nofollow) - Web 2.0 properties / profile sites (nofollow) - Some news/PR services (nofollow as policy)
Google's link attributes:
rel="nofollow" A hint since 2019, not a directive. Google may or may not use it rel="sponsored" Paid or sponsored placement rel="ugc" User-generated content (no attribute) Standard follow link, passes authority Google MAY pass some authority via sponsored/ugc in some cases (unlike strict nofollow), but treat them similar to nofollow for planning.
Audit your backlink profile by source type: Social profiles (LinkedIn bio, Twitter bio): 100% nofollow Wikipedia / wikis: 100% nofollow Forum posts / comments: 100% nofollow News PR wires (some): 100% nofollow Editorial blogs: Usually follow Resource pages: Usually follow Trade press articles: Usually follow Industry directories: Varies Guest posts: Usually follow Your profile percentage = (follow links / total) × 100
To shift the ratio, build in editorial categories:
Nofollow links still help: - Brand mentions (see how-to-fix-brand-mentions) - Referral traffic - Audience exposure - Some indirect ranking signal Keep building social, wiki, community presence. Just add follow sources to balance the mix.
Healthy trajectory: Quarter 1: 25% follow Quarter 4: 35% follow Year 2: 45% follow Year 3: 55%+ follow Gradual shift via consistent editorial outreach. No sudden spikes (looks unnatural).
Everything above is framed around a percentage, so it is worth stating plainly what is actually known.
Google has never published a nofollow ratio, a threshold, or any indication that the ratio itself is a ranking signal. The figures — 60–80% follow, over 70% nofollow being a red flag — are community convention, inferred by practitioners from looking at sites. No leaked document contains them. Nobody is scoring you against them.
What the ratio genuinely is, is a tell. And reading it properly changes what you do about it:
Links you can place yourself: - Social profiles → nofollow by policy - Forum signatures → nofollow by policy - Wiki edits → nofollow by policy - Directory listings → nofollow by policy - Blog comments → nofollow by policy Links somebody chose to give you: - Editorial mentions → usually follow - Resource pages → usually follow - Genuine coverage → usually follow
So a ninety-percent-nofollow profile is not describing a tagging problem that could be fixed by getting attributes changed. It is describing a strategy composed entirely of links you added yourself — which means nobody has yet decided your pages were worth citing.
That is the finding. The ratio was just how you noticed.
The reference table above needs an update that most guidance still has not made. In 2019 Google changed nofollow from a directive to a hint: it may or may not use those links for ranking and crawling, at its discretion, and it has not said how it decides.
The old model (still repeated everywhere):
nofollow → passes nothing, full stop
The current position:
nofollow → a hint. Google may use it. It has not
said when, or how much.
sponsored → identifies paid placements
ugc → identifies user-generated content
(none) → an ordinary link
Two things follow, and they point in the same direction.
Do not write off nofollow links. A nofollow link from a national newspaper sends real readers, builds real awareness, and may well be doing more than a follow link from a directory nobody visits. Referral traffic is measurable, and it is a fact rather than a model.
Do not chase them either. The uncertainty cuts both ways, and building a strategy on the hope that Google is quietly counting your forum signatures is not a strategy. It is a rationalisation for continuing to do the easy thing.
Given a ratio that looks wrong, the instinct is to move the number — and every available method of moving it directly is either useless or harmful.
Asking publishers to remove nofollow
→ Almost never works. Most nofollow is site-wide
policy, and the request announces that you value
the link mechanically rather than editorially.
Buying follow links to dilute the ratio
→ Buys links from the kind of sites that sell them,
which get discounted anyway. You have paid to
make a number look better.
Disavowing nofollow links
→ Achieves nothing. And a domain-level entry
discards good links along with the ones you
were worried about.
The ratio is an output. The only way to change an output honestly is to change the input — which means earning links somebody chose to give you, and letting the percentage follow.
The honest programme has no ratio target in it, and it is the same programme that fixes anchor text distribution, link velocity and half the other backlink metrics that people try to manage individually. That is not a coincidence — they are all symptoms of one thing.
Done that way, the follow ratio, the anchor distribution and the velocity chart all take care of themselves — because each of them was only ever a description of whether people were choosing to cite you.
The ratio, the anchor distribution and the velocity chart are three views of one underlying question, and once you see that, the whole category of backlink metrics becomes much less mysterious.
The question is: did somebody choose to cite you, or did you place this link yourself?
Links you placed yourself tend to look like: - Nofollow (because the platform sets it) - Exact-match anchors (because you chose the words) - Arriving in bursts (because you did them in a session) - From sites that accept submissions Links somebody gave you tend to look like: - Follow (because an editor linked in prose) - Messy anchors — brand, URL, a scrap of a sentence - Arriving irregularly, forever - From sites with no way for you to add anything
Every backlink metric anybody sells you is a way of measuring the balance between those two piles. Which is why optimising any single metric never works: you can change the ratio, tidy the anchors, and pace the acquisition, and the links are still the ones you placed. The fingerprint changed. The hand did not.
And it is why the correct response to a bad-looking profile is almost never a cleanup project. It is a change in what you publish — because the metrics were never the problem, and they were never the goal. They were the readout.
No. They provide brand mention signal, referral traffic, audience exposure, and some indirect ranking signal. Just less direct PageRank than follow links.
Mostly. Since 2020 Google said nofollow is a 'hint' not a directive. They may pass authority in some cases. For planning, still treat nofollow as zero-PageRank.
Rarely succeeds. Most publishers use nofollow by policy; they won't change for one request. Focus on finding sources that default to follow.
No, and it is worth being blunt: Google has never published a nofollow ratio, a threshold, or any indication that the ratio itself is a signal. The percentages in guidance like this are community convention inferred from observation. A nofollow-heavy profile is a symptom worth reading — it usually means the links came from profiles, forums and directories rather than from anybody making an editorial decision. It is the sources that matter, not the ratio. A site will not be penalised for its ratio, but it may well rank below a competitor with comparable counts of mostly-follow links.
No. Google has never published a nofollow ratio, a threshold, or any statement that the ratio itself is a ranking signal. Every percentage you will read — including the ones on this page — is community convention inferred from looking at sites. Treat them as a description of what an editorially-earned profile tends to look like, never as a number you are being scored against. Nobody is measuring your ratio, and no line exists to cross.
Where your links came from, which is the useful information. Social profiles, forum signatures, wiki edits, directory listings and comment sections are all nofollow by policy, and they are all links you can place yourself. Editorial links — somebody choosing to cite you — are usually follow. So a profile that is ninety percent nofollow is not describing a tagging problem. It is describing a link-building strategy built entirely from sources that let you add your own link, which means nobody has yet decided your pages were worth citing. The ratio is the symptom. The strategy is the thing.
Almost never, and the attempt gives away what you are doing. Most publishers who nofollow do it by site-wide policy — news organisations, large media, community platforms — and they will not change it for one request, nor should they. More to the point, an email asking a publisher to change a link attribute is an email announcing that you value the link mechanically rather than editorially, which is precisely the impression you do not want to give somebody who might cite you again. Take the link, take the traffic, and move on.
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