Dofollow Link, Noindex Page: What Does It Mean
Another precise question from the chat: “dofollow link, but the page has noindex — does anyone pay attention to this?”. They do, and it is more important than the link attribute.
Two Different Prohibitions
| What is set | Where it is set | What it prohibits |
|---|---|---|
rel="nofollow" | On the link itself | Weight transfer through this link |
noindex | In the page's meta tag | Page inclusion in the index |
The combination of “dofollow link on a noindex page” means simply: the page will not be indexed, and therefore the link from it will almost certainly not be counted. A page that is not in the index does not pass anything, regardless of the link attribute.
How We Take This Into Account
For each platform, we track the share of publications that actually made it into the index. Measured figures: 44.4% for the first level and 35.2% for the second. Platforms with consistently zero indexing are removed from rotation — currently, 27 out of 72 are disabled. More details — how many publications get indexed.
What You Should Do
- Evaluate the platform not by the attribute of one link, but by whether its pages are in the index.
- Do not pay separately for “guaranteed dofollow” — without indexing, this is an empty guarantee.
- Check your own accepting page for the same noindex: a prohibition on your side nullifies the entire launch. See noindex, nofollow, and robots.txt.
Special Case: Page in the Index, but Link in JavaScript
It can happen that both indexing is present and the attribute is correct, but the link appears only after executing scripts. Such a link will not be seen by some bots — the mechanics are described in the article about JavaScript rendering.
How to Distinguish One from the Other in a Minute
Open the publication page, view the source code, and find the robots meta tag: if it has noindex, there is no need to look further. If it is not there — find your link in the element inspector and check the rel attribute in the rendered tree. These two checks in this order save time: a page-level prohibition cancels everything else.
It is also worth knowing that a prohibition in robots.txt acts differently: it does not remove the page from the index, but only prevents the bot from reading its content. The page can still remain in the results without a description — and the link from it will still not work.