The four hrefs you will actually meet
There is no rel="dofollow". A dofollow link is an href with none of the qualifiers below. Google's page on qualifying outbound links is the source for the three qualifiers: rel="sponsored" for ads and paid placements, rel="ugc" for links people post in comments and forums, and rel="nofollow" when those two do not fit and you would rather Google not associate your site with the linked page or crawl it from yours. That page also says nofollow used to be the mark for paid links and is still acceptable, while sponsored is the value they prefer when money changed hands. You can combine values. The same page says links carrying these rel values are generally not followed. 'Passes SEO value' is industry shorthand for 'this looks like an ordinary editorial endorsement.' It is not a unit Google sells, and it is not a fixed number of positions per DR point.
| What people call it | What the href contains | A normal reason it exists |
|---|---|---|
| Dofollow | <a href="https://ledgerline.example/renewals">Ledgerline</a> | The writer endorsed the page and nobody paid, or someone paid and the attribute was left off |
| Sponsored | rel="sponsored" on that anchor | The placement was paid and the publisher marked it |
| Nofollow | rel="nofollow" | The other two values do not fit, and the publisher does not want an ordinary association |
| UGC | rel="ugc" | A comment, forum post, or other user-submitted block |
Ledgerline.example is a stand-in host for the teaching product, not a site you should look up. On delivery day you replace it with your URL and you read the tag around your anchor only. A nofollow in the footer and a dofollow on your paragraph are different links. Do not let a tool's domain-level 'dofollow count' tell you which one you received. Open the page.
Paid is the case the spam policy is about
If money moved, you are in the situation the spam policies describe when they talk about buying links that pass ranking credit and advertorials that are not disclosed. The outbound-link page points publishers at rel="sponsored" for that situation. A nofollow link can still send a person and can still put the brand in a sentence. It is a poor thing to buy if the only thing you wanted was ranking credit. A sponsored link can still be on a relevant page a buyer reads. The attribute is the disclosure to the crawler. A visible label is the disclosure to the human. The boundary note is the longer version of that split.
ChainEpic's shipped rows are marked DoFollow. The order card says DoFollow Guaranteed. The FAQ offers replacement inside 12 months if the link becomes nofollow. Together, the product is promising an unmarked endorsement and a repair if that attribute changes. That is a commercial term about HTML. It is not a finding that Google will count the link, and it is not rel="sponsored". If your order requires sponsored, type this in the notes and wait: 'Publish with rel="sponsored" and a visible sponsored label. If the row can only be DoFollow, cancel before you draft.' Do not discover the answer in view source after the URL is live.
DR, DA, UR, and referring domains
These get written on the same invoice line and they are not the same object. Referring domains: sites that link to you at least once. Ten links from one site are one referring domain. Dofollow referring domains: a filter inside a tool, and the tools do not define the filter identically, so name the tool when you quote the count. DR: Ahrefs' domain score, which is what the drawer labels 'Ahrefs DR.' DA: Moz's domain score, the next box in the drawer. UR: Ahrefs' page score. It is not in the drawer. If the URL that will hold the link matters, open Ahrefs and read UR on that URL. Do not average DR and DA. The two-row comparison divides TECH-107 by AI-108 so you can see DR, traffic, and price move on different scales.
Spam score in the drawer is a string the page shows, such as 1% or under 1%. This blog does not have a methodology page for it. It does not replace opening the article. Completion is similarly a printed figure, not an audit we are publishing. TAT is the operational number: it tells you when the refund clock starts. Use TAT for the calendar. Use DR to sort a list you have already filtered by topic.
Five minutes in view source
- Find your anchor with the browser's find box. Confirm there is one.
- Read the href. It is the URL from your note, not the homepage, not a redirect you did not approve.
- Read rel. Write the exact tokens into the delivery note: none, sponsored, nofollow, ugc, or a combination.
- If rel is empty and you did not agree to dofollow, stop and ask for the attribute before you accept the placement.
- If rel matches the note, check indexation separately. The attribute is not the index.
Keep the HTML snippet in the note. A screenshot of the rendered page hides rel. A screenshot of view source is the record. When someone later asks whether the 12-month term applies because a link 'turned nofollow,' you will have the day-1 snippet to compare. Without it, the argument is two people's memory of a tag.
FAQ
Does nofollow mean the placement was a waste?
It means you did not get an unmarked endorsement. If the page is relevant and people click, you bought a mention and a visit. If the invoice was sold to you as ranking credit, the rel is a mismatch with the sale, and that is the complaint to raise. It is not proof the page has no readers.
Will ChainEpic mark a link sponsored if I ask in the notes?
The public column and the checkout button say DoFollow. Asking is required if you need sponsored, and you should wait for a yes before you pay. This page cannot promise the row will change. The yes has to come from the order, not from a glossary.