Number of NoFollow External Links counts the outbound anchors on a page that point to a different host and carry nofollow in their rel attribute. It is a plain tally of how you have marked links away from your own site — a high or low count is not automatically better.
| Factor ID | RG-LNK-013 |
|---|---|
| Family | Links on the page |
| Measurement | Count |
| Measured zone | Anchor links in the rendered page body |
What it measures
This factor counts absolute links that point to another host and whose rel value contains nofollow. It looks only at outbound (external) anchors you have explicitly marked as nofollowed — internal links and external links without a nofollow token are not included in this total.
How RankGear measures it
RankGear parses the anchors in the rendered page body and applies three tests to each one. It recognizes only http: and https: destinations as absolute, treats a different host from the current page as external, and reads the trimmed, lowercased rel text to check for the substring nofollow. Every anchor that passes all three tests counts once toward the total.
What RankGear looks for
<a href="https://other-domain.com/page" rel="nofollow">anchor text</a>How to optimize it
Treat this as an observation of your own linking policy rather than a number to push up or down. Apply nofollow when it accurately communicates the relationship and aligns with search-engine guidance. Use the appropriate sponsored designation for paid placements and ugc for user-generated links where applicable. Base each directive on the provenance of the link, not on competitor averages.
Important considerations
- A high or low count is not automatically desirable — the right number depends on your linking policy, not a target.
- The factor does not evaluate the quality of the destinations; it only tallies how the links are marked.
- Combined
reltokens (for examplenofollow sponsored) can satisfy several link factors at once, so one anchor may register across more than one measure. - Site policies and search-engine guidance should determine which directives you apply.
- This is a descriptive count that relates to how a page is measured within a result set; it does not by itself make a page rank or guarantee any position.
Related factors
Part of the Factors reference · how RankGear measures · glossary.