How many links are Dofollow? How many Dofollow links will I get?
These are questions we always get asked when running digital PR campaigns for our clients.
Yes, we get it, you want Dofollow links from authoritative websites, but you are coming from the wrong place.
More than likely, you have used guest posts in the past and have bought these links on authority or ahrefs/SemRush’s domain authority/domain rating scale. These links have also been Dofollow, so now you want them from Forbes, MSN, The Sun, Ideal Home etc.
That’s understandable, but….
The majority of high authority publications will have a nofollow link policy as standard. So are big businesses turning down these links and buying DR70 dofollow guest posts? Of course not.
They know that getting your brand name and link on a major publication even with a nofollow tag is worth more than 10 generic guest posts on obscure blogs.
Why Nofollow Links Are Still Incredibly Valuable
Despite the tag, nofollow links do a lot of heavy lifting for SEO and brand growth.
Since 2019, Google has said it treats the nofollow attribute as a “hint”, meaning it can choose to pass value through these links, especially from reputable sources.
That means a nofollow link from a trusted news outlet may carry more weight than you think.
Most national and global publications (think The Guardian, BBC, CNBC, Wired, The Sun, Daily Mail) apply nofollow by default but Google doesn’t treat every nofollow equally. Context, content quality, and trust signals all come into play.
Above is an example of Forbes nofollowing their outbound links. Below is an example of Ideal Home doing the same thing.
Nofollow links will increase branded searches, boost referral traffic, strengthen topical authority, and support E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) all of which influence your organic visibility when done right.
Nofollow links are needed for a natural link profile.
We once worked with an IT company that had spammed dofollow links to their homepage, which resulting in them dropping over 100 places on the search engine ranking pages. Our solution was to earn real coverage back to their site with nofollow and dofollow links, this resulted in them regaining their rankings and finally taking the number 1 position for their desired keyword.
Another company had overdone their guest post links and had slipped down to position 46 for their main keyword related to their service. We ran a pr campaign which picked up a mixture of dofollow and nofollow links and almost immediately the site responded in a positive matter, over the next few months that keyword took the number 1 spot.
Nofollow and dofollow links are a traditional way of thinking about links but in the real world, would you turn down a mention in Forbes or the BBC just because the link was nofollow? Of course not. These links build brand trust, attract customers, and open doors to partnerships.
What We Tell Clients at Weeare
When you invest in digital PR, you’re not just buying link juice. You’re building real brand authority in front of journalists, readers, and search engines.
Yes, we secure dofollow links too but focusing solely on whether a link has the right tag misses the bigger picture. Google isn’t blind to context, and SEO isn’t a checkbox game anymore.
If you’re in a competitive industry, and your rivals are earning mentions in mainstream publications even as nofollow links you need those too, or you risk falling behind.
Real World Examples of Nofollow links increasing traffic
32,000 monthly website visitors, to 63,000 website visitors earning links through digital PR.
This website earned multiple links from HouseBeautiful.com, Elledecor.com, The Sun, Ideal Home, RealHomes, Lancs.live, HomesandGardens. All of which were nofollow links, all of which contributed to the websites 96.87% increase in organic website traffic. If the website had opted for guest posts that were only dofollow, do you think they would have saw the same growth?
This website also saw a huge increase in search rankings when we added our digital PR services to it. From practically 0 visitors to 9000 all by earning links from reputable places such as The Sun, Express, Newsbreak, Wales Online, Bristol Post, AOL and more, the majority of these links yet again are nofollow.
Another example you can see here, a new site taken to 6000 visitors a month using Digital PR and earning quality backlinks. This site earned links from Wales Online, The Sun, Liverpool Echo, Bristol Post, Devon Live, Gazette Live and once again the majority of these links were nofollow.
Above is another example of Nofollow links in action, this is for a keyword we are currently working on, the keyword has over 30,000 searches a month and before working with us the client didn’t and couldn’t rank for it. Using Digital PR we were able to take them up to position 19 by getting them featured in some of the biggest publications in the world. Sites above this client are household names like Ikea, but by using digital PR and a mixture of nofollow and dofollow links we are able to close the gap on these competitors.
Above is another example of a healthy backlink profile increasing a websites organic traffic. This client had been using guest posts to increase their search traffic, but had overdone it and had lost traffic, you can’t see it here but roughly before the graph starts they were on a downward trajectory.
We worked with the client and earned them links in Ideal Home, The Sun, Country Living, Manchester Evening News, Wales Online, Chronicle Live, Indy100, Nottingham Post, The Argus, Oxford Mail and many more. Once again the majority of these links were nofollow, yet they increased the clients traffic from 8000 visitors a month to over 22,000.
Here’s another site that invests heavily in digital PR, in the span of 2 years this site has gone from 55,000 visitors to 124,000 visitors using Digital PR. This site has earned links from places such as Vogue, Tech Radar, The Sun, Glamour Magazine and more. Once again, the majorit of these publications are no follow and these links have contributed to their organic traffic increase.
And it’s not just us that are seeing these results, Digital PR giants such as Reboot, Fery Kazoni’s Search Intelligence and Digital Loft (who also have a great article on Dofollow vs Nofollow links) who use a combination of nofollow and dofollow links to grow their clients search traffic.