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Advit Seth asked a question
{{::getFormatedLocalTime("2017-08-21T13:28:49.901Z", {without_time: true})}}

Topic: [SEO] Why do most websites today give only nofollow links?

As per Google's own guidelines, nofollow tag should be used in cases of

  1. Untrusted content – giving blog comment spam as an example
  2. Paid links – such as on adverts
  3. Crawl prioritisation –  for ‘register here’ or ‘sign in’ type links since Google crawler can't do those operations

But increasingly, even curated content websites such as YourStory, inc42, etc. have started using "nofollow" tags for all the links, even when they are NOT user-generated. This looks unnecessary and disadvantageous for SEO of good quality content. 

So the question is - are there other reasons why websites are doing this?

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Nikunj Verma Driving growth at CutShort
{{::getFormatedLocalTime("2017-08-21T16:59:15.557Z", {without_time: true})}}
If I were to guess, these could be the reasons:

Avoiding conflicts



Having nofollow for some, while dofollow for others would be difficult to explain to the content contributors. Sticking to a "nofollow" rule is peaceful.

Extra revenue stream



Many websites give a follow link only as a paid feature. In fact, this seems to be a thriving business where SEO companies offer paid links on many such websites.

Fear of losing SEO juice



There seems to be misunderstanding that giving follow links to others reduces site's SEO authority. Well, this only happens when you link to dubious websites. As long as you are linking to credible sources, you are good (and may even get benefits in the eyes of Google). In fact, on CutShort we don't do unfollow links at all until this point.

Curious to know what other folks think!
Nikunj Verma Driving growth at CutShort
{{::getFormatedLocalTime("2018-05-13T11:56:38.397Z", {without_time: true})}}
Yes, we don't mark links "nofollow" even for user generated content. We take down spam through moderation and crowdourcing though.
Surdeep Singh Excited about Marketing & Growth
{{::getFormatedLocalTime("2018-05-13T07:37:24.345Z", {without_time: true})}}
Zero no follow links at all meaning you don't use no follow even in UGC?
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