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Nofollow on internal links

SeverityLow
CategoryLinks
ScopePer page
EffortSmall
Verified byRe-crawl after you mark the task done
Rule keyinternal_nofollow

Short answer

The page has internal links with rel="nofollow". Nofollow is for links you do not vouch for (paid, user-generated); on your own pages it only withholds signals from pages you control. Remove it. If some pages should stay out of the index, use noindex or robots.txt on those pages instead of nofollowing links to them.

Why it matters

Google treats nofollow as a hint not to pass signals through the link. Applying it internally — a common leftover from old "PageRank sculpting" advice or a plugin that nofollows everything in comments — simply reduces the internal link value your pages receive and can make them harder to discover. Google's documentation is explicit that nofollow is for external links you cannot or do not want to endorse.

How Glimana detects it

The rule fires when a page contains one or more internal links carrying rel="nofollow"; the evidence shows the count.

How to fix it

Check SEO or link plugins for a "nofollow internal links" or "nofollow all links" option and turn it off; edit individual links in the editor's link settings.

Look in the theme's navigation and footer snippets for rel="nofollow" and remove it from internal links.

Reserve rel="nofollow", ugc and sponsored for external links; never set them on internal anchors.

How the fix is verified

Re-crawl; the task closes when the page has no internal nofollow links.

Sources