Recently, I created a page with what I recommend and use to run ThemeSkills.
That page also contains some affiliate links, and it’s safer for SEO if they are “nofollow”.
Usually, this is done by adding a rel="nofollow" attribute inside the <a> tag, like this: <a href="https://example.com/link/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">anchor text</a>.
But the next thing happened.
I was using the Content Boxes element from Avada’s (affiliate link) Fusion Builder, which doesn’t have a feature where I could add nofollow to links.
I could have used a workaround, but I really wanted to use that particular element, and it also got personal.
So, what was the solution? Using Yoast’s SEO nofollow setting!
I just nofollowed all the links, which, normally, is not the best idea, but I don’t expect much of that page.
I don’t expect it to rank or gain a lot of authority… It’s mostly for users that come from other landing pages and might click on it to see what I use and recommend.
In this tutorial, I’m going to show how to do that yourself, if you ever think it’s the case.
How to nofollow all the links on a WordPress post or page with Yoast
In order to nofollow all the links from a post or page in WordPress, using Yoast’s setting, you have to:
- Edit the page or post on which you want the links to be nofollow;
- Scroll down to the Yoast SEO meta box;
- Click on the Advanced gear icon;
- Select No under Should search engines follow links on this Post?;
- Save, publish or update your WordPress page or post.
That’s it! All the links are now nofollow!
Now, if you check the source code of your page or post, you’ll see a meta tag like this: <meta name="robots" content="index,nofollow"/>, which instructs search engines that they should index the post or page, but not follow the links.
Again, use this with caution! It should be used in pretty rare cases and if you know what you’re doing, otherwise you could affect your internal linking.
If the post or page will gain authority, but the internal links on it will be nofollow, then they won’t pass any authority to the other linked posts or pages, and they could lose a significant boost.
That’s a wrap
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Hey Radu, thanks for the post! I have been using Yoast for a while but I don’t really use this option. I wish they had an option for EXTERNAL links only but Yoast is pretty awesome as it is anyway. THANKS! :)
Hello! Yes, such an option would be great! Perhaps they’ll implement something like that in the future since they’re rolling out updates like crazy lately. I think they’re feeling the competition gaining some serious ground.
I also wish my theme had a nofollow option for the buttons, so I wouldn’t have to add nofollow the whole page via Yoast. :)
Hi there, I recently did an analysis on ryte.com and according to that website, I have like 23 URL’s that apparently have nofollow links.
However on the advanced section of the website of Yoast, I have a YES to “Should search engines follow links on this Post?”
Do you have an article on how to fix or go from nofollow to dofollow?
Hello
Thanks for the info, However, I am looking for a way to make only external links as nofollow, Any idea how can I do it using Yoast?
Thanks