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Squarespace is great at a lot of things, but one unfortunate thing is that they don’t have the option to designate links as nofollow or in an easy way (like in WordPress).

It's important for website owners, business owners using Squarespace, and other Squarespace users to know what's going on on their own website, and nofollow links are a part of that. You'll know how to add nofollow links on Squarespace.

But there is a way around it. It involves a little bit of HTML code and a little bit of CSS code. Eek! But the best part is–I'm going to give you the exact code to copy/paste.

This will tell you how to add a nofollow on your Squarespace website. The (mostly) easy way.

What are dofollow, nofollow, and sponsored links?

There are three kinds of links at play here:

1. Dofollow
2. Nofollow
3. Sponsored

They all have different meanings and uses. So let's get into it.

What are nofollow links?

So what is a no follow link?

“Google introduced the rel=”nofollow” option in 2005 for bloggers that were struggling with people using comment spam to try and build links in the hope of ranking for specific keywords, like “wedding invitations.” Since that time, Google has suggested using the attribute paid links (a practice that can get you penalized by Google).” 

semrush.com

Nofollow links essentially tell Google through what's called a “nofollow tag” that the website does not endorse the link. With a regular dofollow link, if someone links to your site, you get a backlink, and that's good for SEO.

With nofollow links don't give any of that “link juice” and won't show up as backlinks.

Additionally, nofollow links will always be external links. If you're linking to your Squarespace website, it doesn't meet Google's criteria.

So, how do you mark a link as no follow on Squarespace? We'll get there soon!

What are sponsored links

In 2019, Google introduced “sponsored links.”

“Google suggests using the sponsored attribute to identify links on your site that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships, or other compensation agreements—this is the preferred method they ask for if links are paid for in any way.”

semrush.com

What are dofollow links?

Dofollow links are just regular links. They can be internal links or external links on your web page. You don't need to do anything to them, it's their default state. Anything that isn't a nofollow link or a sponsored link is probably a dofollow link.

When do you have to use nofollow links?

Affiliate links

You need to add nofollow links on Squarespace (and other platforms) when the link is an affiliate link. You are (potentially) getting paid for that link, and that's what Google doesn't want to give link juice too.

Affiliate links are the main point of concern.

Should I add nofollow to all external links?

No, definitely not. Their main purpose is for affiliate links or other paid links. If you're just linking to another blog post in your post, you can and should use a dofollow link.

Are nofollow links important?

Yes, the main reason because Google has come out many times and said that you will be penalized for not using them correctly. Search engine optimization (“SEO”) is CRUCIAL to your success as a blogger.

The higher you show up in search engine results, the more traffic you get. So getting penalized by Google is the last thing you want. This is really just a great place to rack up some good points so that you show up high in Google search results.

When should you make your links nofollow on your Squarespace site?

You need to use nofollow links for affiliate links on Squarespace (or anywhere else). Google may penalize you if you don't.

Affiliate links are the most common situation.

How to add nofollow links on Squarespace in a blog post

There are different ways of adding nofollow links on other platforms, but the best way and the best practice for Squarespace nofollow text links in a text block is to do this with a little bit of HTML code.

You can do this right in the main content, on any part of the page.

So now we're going to learn a little bit of code. (Or at least, copy/paste a little bit of code).

Add a markdown code block

The first thing you need to do is add a markdown code block. It'll look like this:

Add the code

This is a great example of how useful markdown blocks can be when we need a little Squarespace code in our lives.

Go into the markdown block and paste this code:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://example.com”>Link text</a>

.

So what does that code mean?

The “<a” and the “href” tell us that” it's a link.

“href=”https://example.com”>Link text” is the link.

And the “</a> closes the piece of code.

Apply the changes

So all you have to do is replace example.com with the URL you actually want to use and replace “link text” with what words you want to be linked.

Easy, right? Links in Squarespace.

But, we've still got one problem. This method would work if the link were all by itself on its own line. But what if it's in the middle of a paragraph?

Read on.

How do you add a nofollow link in the middle of a paragraph

When you have an entire paragraph of text with a nofollow link (or more than one nofollow link) in it, what do you do?

Insert a markdown box for the whole paragraph

All you have to do is insert another markdown block just like in the last part. But this time, you're going to type the entire paragraph in the markdown block, with our HTML links inserted in the middle of the content where needed.

So it would look like this:

I'm baby aesthetic polaroid waistcoat, health goth 90's distillery lyft keytar XOXO viral celiac. Humblebrag <a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://beccaklein.co/convertkit”>ConvertKit is great! </a> shaman fingerstache, cronut scenester iPhone pickled trust fund umami heirloom you probably haven't heard of them wolf offal. Jean shorts meh organic tonx adaptogen humblebrag yuccie <a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://beccaklein.co/thrivecart”>I heart Thrivecart! </a> pour-over single-origin coffee austin DSA whatever 90's slow-carb offal. Wayfarers yr tilde migas selvage. Vaporware kinfolk franzen 3 wolf moon intelligentsia hoodie occupy.

(I bolded the two links for you just to show you right were they are).

Note: make sure you don't forget about the quotation marks around the URL. I always do.

So once you publish the post, it will look like this:

I'm baby aesthetic polaroid waistcoat, health goth 90's distillery lyft keytar XOXO viral celiac. Humblebrag ConvertKit is great! shaman fingerstache, cronut scenester iPhone pickled trust fund umami heirloom you probably haven't heard of them wolf offal. Jean shorts meh organic tonx adaptogen humblebrag yuccie I heart Thrivecart! pour-over single-origin coffee austin DSA whatever 90's slow-carb offal. Wayfarers yr tilde migas selvage. Vaporware kinfolk franzen 3 wolf moon intelligentsia hoodie occupy.

Will this mess up the formatting of the paragraph?

Nope. But if you need to make other stuff in the paragraph bold or italic, you'll need to put some HTML in there too.

Here's what that would look like.

I'm baby <strong>aesthetic</strong> polaroid <em>waistcoat</em>, health goth <a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://beccaklein.co/canva”>Canva is the bee's knees! </a>90's distillery

For bold text, you wrap the word(s) you wanted bolded in the <strong> and </strong> tags.

For italic text, you wrap the word(s) in the <em> </em> tags.

Pretty straightforward I think?

So this is what that text would now look like:

I'm a baby aesthetic polaroid waistcoat, health goth Canva is the bee's knees! 90's distillery.

So it's a little extra work. But if you just keep that little bit of HTML handy, it's not too bad to make nofollow links in Squarespace which is good news.

How do you add nofollow links in images and buttons on Squarespace?

Ok, but how you may be asking, that's all well and good for text, but what if I need a Squarespace nofollow link in a button links or image links or some other content block?

Good question.

The easiest way to do that is to add a little more code to our site.

Setting up the code

This time we're not putting the code right into the text. Instead, go to Settings >> Advanced >> Code Injection. You'll get a screen that looks like this:

Go into the box that says “Header” and then paste in the following code (custom code is a little scarier looking):

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.0/jquery.min.js"></script> <script> $(document).ready(function() { $("a").attr('rel','nofollow'); }); </script>

Click save, and that's it! This little code injection was the particular code we needed to solve that problem.

Great way to do it!

How do you get links to open in a new window on Squarespace?

One more little piece of code, my friend!

So go back to the link HTML we just talked about. This one:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://example.com”>Link text</a>

Now, we need to add one more thing. To open in a new tab, you'll add target=”_blank” after the URL.

So it looks like this:

<a rel=”nofollow” href=”http://example.com” target="_blank">Link text</a>

And that's it! You now know how to add nofollow links in Squarespace!

Does this work for all Squarespace templates?

Yep! The code is exactly the same regardless of which Squarespace template you're on.

Does this only work on a Squarespace blog post, or does it work on a Squarespace page too?

Nope, it will work on any Squarespace page or post. There's no difference.

So put them on your home page, or in all kinds of different sections, or in a blog post.

It all works the same way.

Does it matter what version of Squarespace I'm using?

Nope. This code is very standard, it works on Squarespace, WordPress…pretty much anywhere.

Are nofollow links good for SEO?

Nofollow links are good for SEO to the extent that not using them when you should is bad for SEO.

There are more important things to worry about with SEO, like:

• Keyword research
• Squarespace SEO settings
• Website content
• High-quality content
• On-page SEO
• Off-page SEO

Are dofollow links bad for SEO?

Again, only if you should be using a nofollow link. Google will penalize you for that.

Are nofollow links good for link-building?

Directly, no. If a link is nofollow, Google doesn't count it like it does a dofollow link so you don't get credit for the backlink, and no SEO juice to help you out.

But, indirectly, nofollow links can still be better than nothing for a few reasons.

Dofollow links may lead to more traffic.

If you get a link, follow or not, on someone else's popular blog, that's going to lead to more traffic for you.

Nofollow links could lead to dofollow links

A site that you're collaborating with for the first time may give you a nofollow link. But if you build a relationship over time, then maybe in the future they'll make the links dofollow.

Do you have to use nofollow links on social media?

Nope. No need. And there's not even a way to do it even if you wanted to. Don't worry about nofollow links at all on social media.

Do visitors know you're using a nofollow link?

No, site visitors have can't tell how a link is coded unless they take the time to use Google Chrome's inspect tool to look at your code. And I'm going to guess that most people aren't doing that.

There's no difference in the user experience of a nofollow link. You click on it and it takes you to a new website, same as any old link.

• • • • • • • •

Squarespace is a powerful tool, but there are little things–like this–that could be improved. For example to add nofollow links in WordPress, whenever you type in a link, there's a dropdown box where you can check

1. Open in a new tab
2. Nofollow
3. Sponsored

Squarespace doesn't have that yet, which is a bummer. But hopefully one day Squarespace will adopt something like that.

But, the code is copy/pasteable, so isn't that really the best part?

Was this article helpful? Leave me a comment and let me know! I love to hear from you guys!

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