Every internal link to the page is nofollow

What it is

Pages on your site link to this page, but every one of those links carries rel="nofollow". Your own site is telling search engines not to follow the only internal paths to the page and not to vouch for it.

Why it matters

Google describes nofollow as saying you would rather it not associate your site with, or crawl  the linked page from your site. On every internal link to a page, that leaves the page to be found mainly through your sitemap and without internal signals of importance. It usually comes from a plugin or template that adds nofollow to a kind of link, such as a button or one menu, not from a decision about this page.

How Asky checks it

Asky maps the links between crawled pages from their raw HTML; JavaScript links are not seen. The page is reported when it has at least one inlink and every one, in content, menus and footers alike, has nofollow among its rel values. A single followed link from any counted page clears it. Image-only links, self-links and links from pages outside your sitemap (the homepage aside) do not count. Error pages are skipped; the homepage is checked too. It runs only in full-site audits with Link analysis on that reached every page without blocks or errors.

Reported as a warning with high severity.

How to fix it

1. Find the links: each linking page is also reported for nofollow on links to your own pages, and that finding lists them.
2. Remove nofollow from internal links to this page. Change the plugin setting or template that adds it, not each link by hand.
3. Remove it from all of them. One followed link clears this finding, but the linking pages that keep nofollow stay reported.
4. While you are there, make sure at least three pages link to it from their body text; fewer is reported as too few inlinks.
5. To leave it as it is: if the page is meant to stay out of search, such as a thank-you page, nofollow does not achieve that. Use a noindex robots meta tag and take the page out of your sitemap. Remove the nofollow from its links as well, or the linking pages stay reported, then mark the issue resolved.

Example

A theme adds nofollow to every button, so the only links to https://example.com/demo carry it:

<!-- Before -->
<a class="button" href="/demo" rel="nofollow">Book a demo</a>
 
<!-- After -->
<a class="button" href="/demo">Book a demo</a>

← Back to Links