How to check dofollow and nofollow links
What this backlink checker scans
The checker fetches the public source page, follows a bounded redirect chain, and scans up to 20 external HTTP links. For every link, it reports the visible anchor text, destination URL, and rel values. It also checks the page title, response status, and page-wide robots directive.
Use the exact live page instead of a directory homepage or submission form. A listing can use different link treatment from the rest of the site, and the result only describes the HTML that Mydentify can read during this check.
What nofollow, sponsored, and UGC mean
A regular link does not need a special rel value. Google documents nofollow for links a publisher does not want treated as an ordinary endorsement, sponsored for advertisements or paid placements, and UGC for links inside user-generated content such as comments or forum posts.
These values describe the publisher's relationship with the destination. They do not tell you whether the linked page is indexed, whether the link sends useful referral traffic, or whether the link will change rankings.
- nofollow marks a link that should not be treated as a normal unqualified link.
- sponsored identifies advertising, sponsorship, affiliate, or other compensated placement.
- UGC identifies links added through user-generated content.
- noopener and noreferrer are browser and privacy attributes. They do not make a link nofollow.
Dofollow is shorthand, not an HTML attribute
There is no standard rel="dofollow" value. SEO tools commonly call a link dofollow when it has no nofollow, sponsored, or UGC treatment and the source page does not declare a page-wide nofollow rule.
A page-level nofollow directive matters because it applies to every link on the page. Read that signal beside each link's own rel values instead of judging the anchor tag alone.
How to verify a live backlink
Find your destination in the report and confirm the anchor text and final URL are correct. Then record the live source page, response status, rel treatment, and check date in your campaign tracker so the result can be reviewed later.
Recheck after a listing edit, site redesign, or domain move. Link attributes and destinations can change, and a previously live backlink can later redirect, disappear, or gain a page-wide nofollow directive.
Know what a followed link really means
A followed result means the checker did not find nofollow-like treatment in the link or page-wide robots directive. It does not guarantee crawling, indexing, PageRank, referral traffic, or a ranking improvement.
Evaluate the complete opportunity: audience relevance, editorial context, page quality, placement, permanence, and whether people can discover the source page. If a site blocks automated requests, requires a login, or renders the link only after JavaScript, inspect the live page in your browser and treat the automated result as unavailable.