RankEngineQuick answer: A nofollow link does not pass PageRank in the traditional sense, but since March 2020 Google treats rel=nofollow as a hint rather than a hard directive — meaning it may choose to count it. Beyond any ranking signal, nofollow links still drive referral traffic, get your brand in front of new audiences, and appear in the content that AI answer engines read when forming citations. They are worth earning; they are not worth chasing at the expense of dofollow links.
What rel=nofollow actually means today
The nofollow attribute was introduced to give publishers a way to flag links they did not want to vouch for. For years, Google treated it as a strict directive: do not follow, do not pass PageRank, do not index the target URL via this path.
That changed. In September 2019, Google announced on the Search Central Blog that all three link attributes — rel=nofollow, rel=sponsored, and rel=ugc — would be treated as hints rather than directives, effective 1 March 2020. Google may use any of them for ranking purposes if its algorithms judge it appropriate.
The practical implication: a nofollow link from a highly authoritative, relevant source is no longer guaranteed to be ignored by Google's ranking systems. It is still less likely to pass full PageRank than a clean dofollow link from the same source, but it is not the dead end it once was.
Practical rule: Earn nofollow links from authoritative, relevant sources as though they could count — because Google has confirmed they sometimes do.
The three link attributes and what each signals
| Attribute | Intended use | How Google treats it |
|---|---|---|
| rel=nofollow | General flag for links you don't endorse | Hint — may count for ranking |
| rel=sponsored | Paid placements, affiliate links | Hint — may count for ranking |
| rel=ugc | User-generated content (comments, forums) | Hint — may count for ranking |
| (no attribute) | Editorial, organic link | Standard followed link |
The distinction between sponsored and ugc matters less for ranking and more for transparency. Using the right attribute on paid links keeps you compliant with Google's guidelines. Failing to mark a paid link as sponsored is the actual risk — not whether you use nofollow versus ugc.
Does a nofollow link help SEO?
Directly: possibly, but not reliably. Google's hint language means the benefit is at Google's discretion, and there is no public signal to confirm when a nofollow link is being counted. Treat any ranking contribution as upside, not a deliverable.
Indirectly: yes, in several concrete ways.
Referral traffic. A nofollow link on a high-traffic site sends real visitors to your store. Those visitors can purchase, subscribe, or share — none of which depends on rel attributes.
Crawl discovery. Googlebot follows links even when they carry nofollow, and has done so for years. A nofollow link on a new domain can still get your URL discovered and added to Google's crawl queue faster than waiting for a sitemap submission alone.
AI engine visibility. Large language models and AI search engines — Perplexity, ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews — train on and retrieve web content without distinguishing followed from nofollowed links. A brand mention on a forum, a press piece with a sponsored tag, a review platform with ugc attributes: all of that text is readable. The link attribute is irrelevant to whether an AI engine reads and cites the surrounding content.
Practical rule: If an AI answer engine can read the page, the rel attribute on your link does not protect your competitors from the mention benefiting you.
Where nofollow links are most common — and most worth having
| Source type | Typical attribute | Realistic SEO value |
|---|---|---|
| Wikipedia | nofollow | High — referral traffic, crawl discovery, AI training data |
| Reddit, forums | ugc | Moderate — targeted referral traffic, brand mentions AI engines read |
| News and media (sponsored) | sponsored | Variable — traffic often high; ranking signal at Google's discretion |
| Blog comment sections | ugc | Low — usually low-traffic pages, low editorial relevance |
| Social media profiles | nofollow | Low direct SEO value; brand visibility only |
| Review platforms (G2, Trustpilot) | nofollow | Moderate — referral traffic, schema-readable review signals |
The pattern is simple: the value of a nofollow link tracks the quality of the source, not the attribute. A link from a niche-relevant Wikipedia article or a high-traffic media piece is worth having. A link from a low-traffic comment section is not worth manufacturing.
Should you disavow nofollow links?
Rarely. Google's own documentation clarifies that nofollow links are less likely to contribute to link spam issues because they already signal non-endorsement. You do not need to disavow a nofollow link from a spammy site in the way you might disavow a dofollow link from one.
The exception is a pattern of links — nofollow or otherwise — from sites that exist solely to sell links, combined with a manual action in Google Search Console. In that scenario, the disavow file is appropriate regardless of the rel attribute. For most stores, the practical answer is: ignore nofollow links in your disavow file unless you have a specific, documented reason to include them.
Practical rule: Do not waste disavow budget on nofollow links unless you have a manual action or a clear pattern of manipulative link schemes that include them.
What actually moves the needle for Shopify merchants
Nofollow links are one signal in a much larger system. For most Shopify stores, the higher-leverage work sits on the page: meta titles and descriptions, image alt text, JSON-LD schema, internal linking structure, canonical tags, and thin or duplicate content. Those are entirely within your control. A poor product page title costs you traffic regardless of how many nofollow links point at it.
If you want a starting point, the free Shopify SEO audit at /free-seo-audit scans your store and surfaces the on-page issues that are most likely to be limiting your rankings right now — no account required.
RankEngine, the app behind this site, fixes those on-page issues directly through the Shopify Admin API and re-reads the live store to confirm each fix actually landed before marking it done. It does not build backlinks — nofollow or otherwise — and it is honest about that limit. On-page SEO and backlink acquisition are different disciplines, and conflating them leads to wasted effort. You can read a fuller breakdown of what it handles in the complete Shopify SEO guide.
How nofollow links connect to AI answer engine optimization
AI search engines do not see rel attributes the way a traditional link-graph algorithm does. They see text. A mention of your brand on a well-trafficked forum thread, a product review with a ugc-tagged link, a sponsored post on an industry site — all of that content feeds the models that generate AI Overviews and Perplexity answers.
This is one reason answer engine optimization treats brand mentions and structured content as first-class signals, not just dofollow link counts. The question is whether an AI engine can find, read, and trust what it finds about your store. A strong nofollow presence across authoritative, relevant sources contributes to that.
For merchants thinking about AI visibility more broadly, the AI search optimization guide for Shopify covers how to structure your store so that AI engines can accurately represent your products. And if you want to understand how AI crawlers specifically access your site, connecting Claude to Shopify via RankEngine's MCP Server explains the technical layer involved.
The honest summary
Nofollow links are not worthless. They are also not equivalent to editorial dofollow links from authoritative sources. Google's hint language means a nofollow from a highly relevant, high-authority page may contribute to rankings — but you cannot predict when or measure it directly.
The practical approach: earn nofollow links by producing content and products worth citing, just as you would for dofollow links. Do not manufacture them. Do not ignore them in your link audit if they come from genuinely relevant, high-traffic sources. And do not let the attribute conversation distract from the on-page work that has a more direct and measurable impact.
For a broader look at what tools are actually available to Shopify merchants — link-related and otherwise — the roundup of the best Shopify SEO tools covers the current landscape without the hype.