Nearly 80% say nofollow links still affect rankings
Editorial.link's 2025 practitioner survey finds roughly eighty per cent of respondents believe nofollow backlinks still meaningfully affect rankings, despite Google's long-standing official guidance that the attribute removes the link from PageRank flow. The practitioner view reflects observed correlations, since sites accumulating substantial nofollow link volume tend to improve in rankings, and the suspicion that Google's 2019 reclassification of nofollow as a “hint” rather than a directive meaningfully changed how the signal is interpreted. The old binary of dofollow-equals-value, nofollow-equals-nothing is now firmly minority opinion. Programme budgets are reflecting this: agencies routinely buy nofollow placements rather than reject them out of hand.
Methodology: Editorial.link 2025 practitioner survey; share believing nofollow backlinks still meaningfully affect rankings. About LinkPanda.
Do nofollow links matter for rankings?
Nearly 80% of practitioners in Editorial.link’s 2025 survey believe nofollow backlinks still meaningfully affect rankings, despite Google’s long standing official guidance that the attribute removes the link from PageRank flow. The nofollow ranking impact survey reflects how the industry actually treats the attribute: as a hint rather than a wall. Among nofollow links statistics this is the clearest gap between official guidance and practitioner experience. To audit your own profile, our free dofollow nofollow link checker classifies every link on a page in seconds.
What does Google officially say about nofollow?
That the attribute removes the link from PageRank flow. The survey shows most practitioners believe the practical effect on rankings is not zero.
Should I still pursue nofollow placements?
Eighty per cent of surveyed practitioners think they matter, so most programmes treat relevant nofollow placements as worth having rather than skipping.
