What is dofollow?

A Dofollow link is exactly the opposite of a Nofollow link. With a dofollow link you indicate to the search engines that a certain link may be followed. Hereby you also give permission that the destination of this link gets extra value by means of linkjuice. Dofollow links are of enormous value for external link building and contribute to a better position within the search engines. This is in contrast to a nofollow link where you let people know that a link may not be followed and may not get extra value. But what is dofollow and what role does it play in improving your position within the search engines? 

Definition dofollow 

A dofollow link is a value that is added to an HTML element. Hereby you make clear that a website may be given extra value. The great thing about a dofollow link is that you don't have to do anything extra for it. When you place a link to another page, then it is immediately considered as a dofollow link. Only when you want to add a nofollow value, it requires some extra steps. 

You can see how easy it is to add a dofollow link when, for example, you write an e-mail or create an article in Word. Every web address that is entered, will automatically be converted into a dofollow link. It is also possible to make a CMS yourself. 

Dofollow and SEO 

But what is the importance of dofollow links and why is this used for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)? Link building plays a very important role in SEO. Every dofollow link that points to your page is seen as a vote by Google. The more "votes" there are to your page, the more valuable it is considered to be. That is why it is important to have more qualitative links pointing to your page. The higher the ranking of these websites, the higher the value that trickles down to your page. 

This sounds easier than it really is. In the past this was sometimes abused. For example, large amounts of links were bought and no longer earned. This is of course not what Google wants. They want the websites that they place at the top of the search results to actually be of great value to the visitors. If not, they will also lose their quality position. That is why it is important that you - if you want to pay extra attention to external link building - take into account that you only have qualitative links placed to your website. Not only context but also relevance is important.