How to Add rel="nofollow" to Links?

revir

I think the default markdown plugin has properly handled this, set the config "tell web crawlers that external links are not to be followed" true would add rel="nofollow" tag to outgoing links.

srinik

@revir
@PitaJ

I would like to add rel="nofollow" only on affiliate links.....not all links.

Say for example I'm promoting a book or pen then I do want to have nofollow tag on that outgoing link.

Please let me know the procedure.

revir

no, I don't know why you would like that, I think all posts' external link should be not followed, I actually appreciate NodeBB has this feature, a lot of websites ignore this, there are so many SEO rubbish contents filled those sites.

If you want to promote something, you should use the widget to add html code to that page, or write a template. Like what I did for my website, see the footer of the page, there are a lot of outgoing links, the crawler can index those.

srinik

@revir

Actually, I would like to promote Amazon products by making a review on it. So would like to add nofollow tag to that affiliate link in the post where I review the product.

Kindly guide me how to do it.

vstoykov

You can enable HTML. Not sure if you can enable it only for specific users.

vstoykov

I just tested it and it works.

I installed nodebb-plugin-sanitizehtml, enabled it, and enabled HTML (from Plugins -> Markdown -> Allow HTML).

$ npm install nodebb-plugin-sanitizehtml

Then changed the settings for "allowed attributes" to:

{"a":["href","name","target","rel"],"img":["src","class","alt","title"]}

and "allowed tags" to:

["h1","h2","h3","h4","h5","h6","blockquote","p","a","ul","ol","nl","li","b","img","i","strong","em","strike","code","hr","br","div","table","thead","caption","tbody","tr","th","td","pre"]

Now this should work:

<a href="http://amazon.com/" rel="nofollow">Amazon </a>

srinik

@vstoykov said in How to Add rel="nofollow" to Links?:

hen changed the settings for "allowed attributes" to:

Thank You for helping me out.

Should I just fill the array of allowed tags in the first blank? Sorry for the noob query.

vstoykov

You should enter the array of tags and the array of attributes.

If you forget to add "rel" in the array of allowed attributes, it would not work. You can copy my examples, I mentioned above:

Settings for "allowed attributes":

{"a":["href","name","target","rel"],"img":["src","class","alt","title"]}

Settings for "allowed tags":

["h1","h2","h3","h4","h5","h6","blockquote","p","a","ul","ol","nl","li","b","img","i","strong","em","strike","code","hr","br","div","table","thead","caption","tbody","tr","th","td","pre"]

Or you can enable only the "a" tag:

Allowed attributes:

{"a":["href","name","target","rel"]}

Allowed tags:

["a"]

srinik

@vstoykov

Thank you ...will use the mentioned settings.

I came to know that by default NodeBB uses nofollow tags for all outgoing links through markdown.

If it is the case, i would be happy with that single plugin.

educator

A lot of nofollow link is a big no no, As google might consider you as a guy who don't want give back something for any other guy. Link juice is important, but saving everybit of link juice is unnecessarily unimportant and unimpressing for google bro.

vstoykov

The current version of NodeBB is adding "nofollow" to all external links. Testing this:

https://www.youtube.com/
https://community.nodebb.org/

How to disable this feature? I want "nofollow" only on some links.

vstoykov

I found out how to do it:

Plugins -> Markdown -> [ ] Tell web crawlers that external links are not to be followed

scottalanmiller

@revir said in How to Add rel="nofollow" to Links?:

If you want to promote something, you should use the widget to add html code to that page, or write a template. Like what I did for my website, see the footer of the page, there are a lot of outgoing links, the crawler can index those.

Why link something that you don't want to promote? Seems like odd behaviour. Your are promoting it, but then get spiteful? I can understand some very specific moments that something might need to be linked quietly and there is no intent for people to visit the page. But by and large, if someone is promoting something, pretending that they are not is weird. If you truly don't want it to be promoted, just don't link it.

scottalanmiller

@srinik said in How to Add rel="nofollow" to Links?:

But, you know as per SEO one should use nofollow tag for unnecessary links.

What's an unnecessary link? I think that the best approach is to eliminate unnecessary links, rather than linking and then trying to hurt their SEO after having utilized them as a reference.