Do-Follow Links

A “do follow” link is a reference from an (external) page to a page within your website, which Google’s crawlers follow. Do follow links convey authority to the page they link to and are important for link building. In addition, to do-follow links, you also have no-follow links.

You can recognize a do-follow link by the following code in the source code of the page.

For example: <a href=”https://seeders.nl“>Seeders</a>

Checking the source code of every page you have backlink is very time-consuming. Fortunately, there are online tools that can easily detect do-follow and no-follow links in a backlink profile. This saves you a lot of time! The online tools that give you insight into this include Neil Patel, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, and Moz. Keep in mind that these tools are all paid tools except Niel Patel which is a free tool. 

Neil Patel

The first and free way to find out about do-follow backlinks is by checking Neil Patel.

• Go to Neil Patel’s website
• Enter the name of your website
• Go to ‘SEO Explorer’ on the left side of your screen
• Click on ‘backlinks’
• Set the filter to ‘Follow’.

Ahrefs

Checking do-follow links within Ahrefs is very easy! Type in the name of the website from which you want to detect the do follow links in the Site Explorer. After that, you get the total overview (dashboard) of the backlink profile. On the right side, you have the possibility to check the do-follow links. You can do this simply by clicking on do follow links (in blue).

SE ranking

Using SE Ranking’s ‘Backlink checker’ feature, you can also track do follow links by doing the following things:

• Go to the ‘Backlink checker’ function;
• Type in the name of the website;
• Click on Referring Domains. This module is on the left side of the display screen;
• Set the filter to ‘dofollow’ and click the blue ‘Apply filters’ button

Moz

Checking backlinks for do follow status can also be done in Moz. Once logged into the system: 

• Go to Link Research (on the left side of the page);
• Enter the name of the website;
• Go to ‘Linking Domains’;
• Set the ‘Link Type’ filter to ‘follow’.

GAINING DO-FOLLOW LINKS

Gaining a do-follow backlink can be done in several ways! It’s always easy to score a do follow link today. The most common way is to purchase home page links. These backlinks are always published “do follow” by the website owner. However, this method may become less valuable over time for sustainable link building.

Sustainable link building is link building where link buying or some kind of exchange is not included. Sustainable ways of link building include techniques such as Skyscraper link building, broken link building and Digital PR.

Chances of gaining do-follow links

The chances of getting a do follow link will vary by link building techniques. If you go for a sustainable form of link building, (one of the previously mentioned methods) while discovering no-follow links in the link profile, the challenge is whether to get this link on a do follow status. This has something to do with the transfer of authority (or link juice) to a page within your own website. However, many website owners are actually aware of this.