Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • MozCon
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research
      Moz Pro

      Track AI Overviews in Keyword Research

      Try it free!
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. SEO Tactics
    3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    4. Should I add no-follow tags to my widget links?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    Should I add no-follow tags to my widget links?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
    3
    3
    1383
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • Maximuxxx
      Maximuxxx Subscriber last edited by

      Matt Cutts recommended in a video in 2013 to add rel="nofollow" on widget links that link back to your website.

      Some background of my company: We're a software company for website chat. There's a 'powered by' link in our widgets that links back from our users' websites to our website. Currently these are all follow links.

      I checked out the links of our competitors, and it seems none of them have no follow on their widget backlinks. This, together with the fact that the video is quite old and information on this issue rather scarce, makes me doubt whether we should change our widget backlinks to no follow.

      Does anyone have thoughts on this?

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • Everett
        Everett last edited by

        Hello Pascal,

        Like Hillary Clinton, I have a public opinion and a private opinion when it comes to stuff like this. The public opinion is also Google's, and that is to use a rel="nofollow" attribute on widget links. They are considered links that webmasters use to manipulate the search engine rankings. Yes, that video is old, but the rule still stands as far as Google is concerned.

        My private opinion is that widgets are a form of branding, and it is not a webmaster's responsibility to do anything other than get their brand discovered far and wide. You created a widget that, if people are using it, probably provides some value to them. Why should you get any less credit for this than you would get from someone linking to the widget on your site?

        If you are going to keep the links followable, my advice is to keep the anchor text branded and the href pointing to your home page. This is the least likely to seem like link-graph manipulation. Avoid deep-links, unless they go to the widget download page, and avoid optimized anchor text. Use "YourDomain.com" or "Your Brand" instead.

        I'll leave the question open for more input since this isn't a question that necessarily has a single "right" or "wrong" answer.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • TimHolmes
          TimHolmes last edited by

          Hmmmm, Google will likely deem your widget as an advertising tool and in their world this is potentially deemed negative, as such you have to make the call, do you want to stay on Google side and follow what they say or continue and then fall foul to some kind of penalty.

          I personally would add rel="nofollow" to be on the safe side. Hopefully this won't dramatically affect your rankings.

          Could you potentially trial the nofollow on a segment of the plugins to see how it impacts your rankings. Scary I know, but possibly the only way you can see how it could affect you.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
          • 1 / 1
          • First post
            Last post

          Got a burning SEO question?

          Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


          Start my free trial


          Browse Questions

          Explore more categories

          • Moz Tools

            Chat with the community about the Moz tools.

          • SEO Tactics

            Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers

          • Community

            Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!

          • Digital Marketing

            Chat about tactics outside of SEO

          • Research & Trends

            Dive into research and trends in the search industry.

          • Support

            Connect on product support and feature requests.

          • See all categories

          Related Questions

          • tarafaraz

            Putting Dates In Title Tag

            Hi, I have a site were I write previews for sports match ups.  I notice when I don't put the date in the title I rank much better for specific keywords.  I also noticed that most people don't really put in the date when they do the search anyways, especially since google does a good job of showing the most recent pages anyways. The only reason I continue to put the date is because of this whole idea of not having page titles that are duplicate.  So many of our games will be Team A vs Team B Preview, and Im worried that the term "preview" will become so repetitive that google may not like it.  Any tips or ideas on how to approach this issue best? Thanks!

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | tarafaraz
            1
          • Kingalan1

            Meta Robot Tag:Index, Follow, Noodp, Noydir

            When should "Noodp" and "Noydir" meta robot tag be used? I have hundreds or URLs for real estate listings on my site that simply use "Index", Follow" without using Noodp and Noydir. Should the listing pages use these Noodp and Noydr also? All major landing pages use Index, Follow, Noodp, Noydir. Is this the best setting in terms of ranking and SEO. Thanks, Alan

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan1
            0
          • Mark_Ch

            URL Value: Menu Links vs Body Content Links

            Hi All, I'm a little confused. I have read a number of articles from authority sites that give mixed signals over the importance of menu links vs body content links. It is suggested that whilst all menu links spread link juice equally, Google does not see them as favourably. Inserting a link within the body will add more link juice value to the desired page. Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks Mark

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mark_Ch
            0
          • M_D_Golden_Peak

            Do 404 Pages from Broken Links Still Pass Link Equity?

            Hi everyone, I've searched the Q&A section, and also Google, for about the past hour and couldn't find a clear answer on this. When inbound links point to a page that no longer exists, thus producing a 404 Error Page, is link equity/domain authority lost? We are migrating a large eCommerce website and have hundreds of pages with little to no traffic that have legacy 301 redirects pointing to their URLs. I'm trying to decide how necessary it is to keep these redirects. I'm not concerned about the page authority of the pages with little traffic...I'm concerned about overall domain authority of the site since that certainly plays a role in how the site ranks overall in Google (especially pages with no links pointing to them...perfect example is Amazon...thousands of pages with no external links that rank #1 in Google for their product name). Anyone have a clear answer? Thanks!

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | M_D_Golden_Peak
            0
          • witmartmarketing

            Links from new sites with no link juice

            Hi Guys, Do backlinks from a bunch of new sites pass any value to our site?  I've heard a lot from some "SEO experts" say that it is an effective link building strategy to build a bunch of new sites and link them to our main site.  I highly doubt that... To me, a new site is a new site, which means it won't have any backlinks in the beginning (most likely), so a backlink from this site won't pass too much link juice. Right? In my humble opinion  this is not a good strategy any more...if you build new sites for the sake of getting links. This is just wrong. But, if you do have some unique content and you want to share with others on that particular topic, then you can definitely create a blog and write content and start getting links. And over time, the domain authority will increase,  then a backlink from this site will become more valuable? I am not a SEO expert myself, so I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | witmartmarketing
            0
          • BeytzNet

            Should I remove Meta Keywords tags?

            Hi, Do you recommend removing Meta Keywords or is there "nothing to lose" with having them? Thanks

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | BeytzNet
            0
          • rball1

            Increasing Internal Links But Avoiding a Link Farm

            I'm looking to create a page about Widgets and all of the more specific names for Widgets we sell: ABC Brand Widgets, XYZ Brand Widgets, Big Widgets, Small Widgets, Green Widgets, Blue Widgets, etc. I'd like my Widget page to give a brief explanation about each kind of Widget with a link deeper into my site that gives more detail and allows you to purchase. The problem is I have a lot of Widgets and this could get messy: ABC Green Widgets, Small XYZ Widgets, many combinations. I can see my Widget page teetering on being a link farm if I start throwing in all of these combos. So where should I stop? How much do I do? I've read more than 100 links on a page being considered a link farm, is that a hardline number or a general guideline?

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rball1
            0
          • MarieHaynes

            Why should your title and H1 tag be different?

            Is it dangerous to have your H1 tag and your title the exact same thing?  My thought was that it's not be the best use of space, but that it couldn't cause harm. What do you think?

            Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MarieHaynes
            7

          Get started with Moz Pro!

          Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

          Start my free trial
          Products
          • Moz Pro
          • Moz Local
          • Moz API
          • Moz Data
          • STAT
          • Product Updates
          Moz Solutions
          • SMB Solutions
          • Agency Solutions
          • Enterprise Solutions
          • Digital Marketers
          Free SEO Tools
          • Domain Authority Checker
          • Link Explorer
          • Keyword Explorer
          • Competitive Research
          • Brand Authority Checker
          • Local Citation Checker
          • MozBar Extension
          • MozCast
          Resources
          • Blog
          • SEO Learning Center
          • Help Hub
          • Beginner's Guide to SEO
          • How-to Guides
          • Moz Academy
          • API Docs
          About Moz
          • About
          • Team
          • Careers
          • Contact
          Why Moz
          • Case Studies
          • Testimonials
          Get Involved
          • Become an Affiliate
          • MozCon
          • Webinars
          • Practical Marketer Series
          • MozPod
          Connect with us

          Contact the Help team

          Join our newsletter
          Moz logo
          © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
          • Accessibility
          • Terms of Use
          • Privacy

          Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.