How to Use rel="nofollow" for applicable links on Webflow

The rel="nofollow" attribute tells Google not to pass PageRank through a link. It was introduced to address paid links and spam, and it's been part of SEO practice since 2005. Knowing when to use it — and when not to — keeps your site on the right side of Google's link guidelines.

Where nofollow applies: paid or sponsored links, affiliate links, links in user-generated content you haven't reviewed, and links to sites you're not willing to vouch for. Google added two related attributes in 2019: rel="sponsored" for paid links and rel="ugc" for user-generated content. These are now preferred over plain nofollow for those specific cases, though nofollow still works and is widely used.

Where nofollow does not apply: regular editorial links to sources, citations, references to tools or case studies, and links to related content on other sites. These should be standard dofollow links. Adding nofollow to your editorial outbound links out of caution is unnecessary and mildly reduces the usefulness of your content.

In Webflow, adding nofollow to a link requires going into the HTML attributes of the link element. Select the link in the Designer, open the Element Settings panel (the cog icon), and add a custom attribute: name rel, value nofollow. For sponsored links, use sponsored as the value. For CMS-managed content with rich text fields, you'll need to add this through custom embed blocks or manage it in post-processing if your workflow allows it.

For affiliate links specifically: if you link to products or services and earn a commission, those links need rel="sponsored". This is a Google guideline, not a suggestion. Undisclosed paid links are a manual action risk. The attribute is straightforward to add and the risk of not adding it is real.

Review your external links periodically. If you've been linking to a site that has since become spammy or irrelevant, nofollow or remove that link. Outbound link quality is part of how Google evaluates your page's overall quality.