How to easily add nofollow links in WordPress using Gutenberg

Do you need to include a nofollow link in your post or page in WordPress but have no idea what it is or how you can do it?

In this post, I’ll show you how you can easily add nofollow links in your WordPress blog or website using the new Gutenberg edito.

How to add nofollow links in WordPress

The purpose of a nofollow link is purely for SEO. Basically, you want to tell Google to not follow when it analyses your page or post.

There are different reasons why you might want to use a nofollow link. The most common are:

• Sponsored link/ad: if you receive a payment for using a link (directly or indirectly), it’s good practice to add a nofollow tag to avoid breaking Google’s guidelines.
• Untrusted content: for example, you want to still use a link but you don’t want your website to relate. Like spam links or links in comments.

Whether is your reason, here’s how you can do it.

Adding a simple code

It doesn’t require any coding knowledge and it’s very simple to do it.

First step, just add a link like you regularly would do:

Once done, click on the three dot on the block options and select “edit as HTML“.

Now you will see something similar to this:

<p><a href="https://yourlinkhere.com">name_here</a></p>

At this point, we need to add a little simple code after your domain name.

Here’s the code you can copy and paste:

rel="nofollow"

Your link as HTML will look like this now:

Revert back to “edit visually” and that’s it! The link just looks like before but now it includes a nofollow tag.

Can you use a plugin?

Yes, there are plugins to install so you don’t have to manually type the code every time. But here’s why I don’t recommend it:

• Not available on WordPress 5.1. If you’re using the latest version of WordPress (and you should), at the moment there isn’t any plugin updated to this version. You should use the Classic Editor instead of Gutenberg but, as WordPress will eliminate the old editor in the next years, it doesn’t make sense to learn something from the past.
• It will slow down your website. Every time your blog or website loads, also every installed plugin is loaded. So if you already have a few numbers of plugins, you should avoid to overload it. Save the code in the notes, for example, and use it when needed.

In any case, if you’ve got the Classic Editor and looking for a plugin, here’s another guide that will tell you how to do it.

Should I make all external link nofollow?

This is a tricky question, and you’ll see a lot of different replies even from the experts.

With my experience and knowledge on SEO I would say NO.

Search engines are not just machine looking for keywords. They also rank your content depending on pertinence and if what you are writing is informative or spammy.

So, if you blog about makeup and you link to a makeup brand, I think this is informative and pertinent. Instead, if you write about makeup and then suddenly refer to a cooking tools brand… well, that’s not very pertinent.

In conclusion

As soon as your blog or website starts to grow, you should keep an eye on SEO to help you rank higher on Google and bring in more organic traffic.

Nofollow links are a great way to tweak your SEO.

Are you already doing it? Did you hear before of nofollow links? Let me know in the comment below 🙂