Backlinks not appearing in your search engine optimisation index software or Google Search Console? There’s a chance these backlinks could be noreferrer backlinks.
There is always lot of talk around these types of links. Yet their purpose and effect on SEO has somehow remained quite mysterious. Perhaps this is because there’s a lot of misconceptions being aired. Or perhaps it could also be due to the fact that a lot of the literature about them is highly technical, leaving readers more confused then before starting the research process.
I’ll clarify the use and impact of No referrer tags for SEO, as well as clarifying some common misconceptions.
What is a No Referrer tag?
A No referrer tag is a HTML attribute that can included in a link. This will hide the referral information coming from the link to the target website. Basically you’ll have a backlink but it won’t show in Google Search Console or Ahrefs or SEM Rush.
It means that any traffic that comes to your site through the No Referrer link will be understood by Google Analytics as direct traffic, not referral traffic.
No Referrers are most commonly used for security purposes, they prevent malware and harmful crawlers from gaining info about your site. However, they’re also used when websites want to link to another site without the linked site knowing they’ve been linked.
Basically you’ll have a backlink but it won’t show in Google Search Console or Ahrefs or SEM Rush.
Do No Referral Backlinks effect SEO?
No, they do not effect the amount of domain rating or link juice given to the linked site.
This means that technically the value of the link remains unchanged. However, a lot of SEO success comes from linking to other websites with high-quality content. The linked websites noticing your content and the beginning and nurturing of mutually beneficial SEO relationships. By adding No Referrer tags to your links you disable the linked website’s ability to acknowledge all the hard work you put into content creation and link selection.
No Referrer Backlinks and No Follow backlinks – what’s the difference?
I’ve noticed a lot of confusion from those just starting out with SEO community around no referrer and no follow backlinks, you can this info from any SEO Companies, but SEO marketers have a tendency to complicate things, so here it is in plain english.
Noreferrer | backlinks keep the referring information of a site secret, meaning the link is undetectable. Use this type of tag when you don’t want the linked site to know you’ve linked to them.
No follow | The types of backlinks will show up in Google Search Console and Ahrefs. But rather than giving away full link equity with a regular backlink, a no follow means that limited SEO juice is imparted onto the linked websites. You should use no follow links to sites you don’t completely trust or don’t want to give away your SEO juice (link equity).
