Can no-follow links have a negative impact on your site’s ranking?

See Matt Cutts’ video and learn everyhting about the difference with dofollow links.

It is common practice to build links on blogs, forums and many other online sources in order to direct traffic to particular websites. But in terms of search engine optimisation etiquette, when you are building no-follow links with the objective of directing traffic to your website, are you safe from Google’s penalties?

In general, Google’s advice is that no-follow links cannot hurt a site as long as you are not overdoing it, or misusing the links. In a recent Google Webmaster help video by Matt Cutts, Google’s Head of Search Spam, he even said:

“Typically, no-follow links cannot hurt your site.”

BUT… the search spam guru further elaborates, saying that if you keep on building links left, right and centre to each and every blog, even if the links are no-follow, the outcome may not be so rewarding. There are cases where some individuals routinely make blog comments on certain high traffic websites in order to piggy back on the traffic. In such cases where other users report these individuals as spammers, or if Google notices such manipulative behaviour, there is a possibility that Google may take manual spam action against them.

Therefore, the best approach is to build your no-follow links sensibly and boost your site rankings to direct more traffic to your website.

In every website today we need both dofollow and nofollow links as well in order to keep a balanced link profile. The ideal balance between nofollow and dofollow links are 85% dofollow to 15% nofollow.

It is a rule that many SEOs and SEO Agencies admit and follow with some differntiations.