Since 2019, Google has treated rel="nofollow" (along with rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc") as a hint rather than a strict directive, meaning Google’s systems can still choose to crawl through and consider such links for discovery and, in some cases, ranking purposes, rather than universally disregarding them the way the original nofollow specification intended. Separately, even a backlink that passed literally zero direct ranking equity could still drive referral traffic, brand-search lift, and increased discovery of the linked page from a major, high-crawl-frequency publication’s domain, all of which can correlate with ranking improvement through indirect channels that have nothing to do with direct link-equity transfer.
The mechanism change: hint, not directive
Before 2019, rel="nofollow" functioned as an absolute instruction: a nofollowed link would not be counted for ranking purposes and, in practice, was also not typically followed for crawling and discovery. Google’s 2019 announcement, “Evolving ‘nofollow’,” changed this explicitly, introducing the more specific rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" attributes alongside redefining nofollow itself as one of several hint attributes Google’s systems can weigh at their own discretion rather than a hard exclusion. Under this model, Google may still crawl through a nofollow-hinted link to discover the destination page, and may, depending on the broader context Google’s systems have about the link and its surroundings, factor that link into ranking evaluation as well, even though nofollow’s core communicative intent (this isn’t necessarily an editorial endorsement) is still generally respected as a default.
This is the specific, citable mechanism behind the phenomenon in the question: a nofollow attribute from a major publication no longer guarantees the link is entirely disregarded the way it would have been before 2019. It’s accurate to say Google doesn’t guarantee full equity passes through such a link the way it would through a standard followed link, but it’s equally accurate to say Google has confirmed these links aren’t automatically zeroed out either.
The indirect channels that don’t require equity transfer at all
It’s important not to attribute every observed correlation to the hint-based mechanism alone, because several entirely separate effects can produce the same observed outcome, a nofollow link correlating with improved rankings, without any link-equity transfer being involved at all:
- Referral traffic and increased brand-search volume. A link from a major publication, even nofollowed, drives real click-through traffic from readers, and can also prompt readers to search for the brand name directly afterward rather than clicking through immediately. Increased brand-search volume and direct navigational search behavior are themselves signals that can be associated with a site’s overall visibility and can factor into how Google’s systems perceive a brand’s prominence, entirely independent of the link’s follow status.
- Accelerated discovery and crawling. Major publication domains are typically crawled very frequently by Googlebot given their own scale and update frequency. A link, even nofollowed, sitting on such a page can lead Googlebot to discover or recrawl the linked page sooner than it otherwise would have, which can accelerate how quickly content changes or new pages get indexed and start accruing whatever ranking signals they’re going to accrue on their own merits.
- Correlation with genuine newsworthiness. A site earning a nofollowed link from a major publication in the first place is often a site that did something independently notable, released original research, launched a genuinely newsworthy product, was part of a real news event. That same underlying newsworthiness is likely to be independently driving other, unrelated ranking-relevant signals (other publications covering the same story with followed links, increased overall web mentions, social discussion) concurrently with the nofollowed link, making it easy to misattribute the ranking improvement to the nofollow link specifically when it may be one symptom of a broader visibility event rather than its cause.
Why this shouldn’t be read as “nofollow equals followed now”
None of this means nofollow-hinted links now function equivalently to standard followed links, and Google has been consistent that it doesn’t guarantee equity passage through hinted links the way it does through unattributed ones. The honest, precise framing is that the hint-based model removed the previous absolute guarantee of exclusion, replacing it with Google’s discretion, while the correlation practitioners observe between major-publication nofollow links and ranking improvement is very plausibly explained, in whole or in part, by indirect brand and traffic effects that have nothing to do with direct equity transfer at all. Attributing the entire observed effect to “nofollow secretly passes equity now” overstates what Google has confirmed and ignores the more mundane explanation sitting alongside it.
A worked example of the indirect channels at work
Suppose a small fintech company, Site X, gets a nofollowed mention in a major national news outlet’s roundup article, one sentence citing Site X as an example, with a nofollow attribute applied automatically per the outlet’s standard linking policy. In the following weeks, Site X sees branded search volume rise, more people searching “Site X” directly, some referral traffic from readers who clicked through despite the nofollow tag, and a handful of smaller blogs independently writing about the same story with followed links, since the original coverage made Site X newsworthy enough to reference elsewhere. If Site X’s rankings improve shortly afterward, attributing that entirely to “the nofollow link secretly passed equity” ignores the more plausible explanation sitting right next to it: brand-search lift, referral traffic, and the followed links from the smaller blogs that piggybacked on the same news cycle are all independently capable of producing that same ranking movement, with or without Google choosing to weigh the nofollowed link itself.
Practical implication
Don’t chase nofollow links from major publications on the theory that they now function as reliable followed-link substitutes; Google hasn’t confirmed that, and the mechanism remains discretionary rather than guaranteed. Do continue to value earned coverage from major, high-traffic publications regardless of link attribute, since the referral traffic, brand-search lift, and accelerated discovery effects are real and don’t depend on the link being followed at all. When analyzing why a specific ranking improvement followed a piece of major-publication coverage, look at the fuller picture, brand-search volume trends, referral traffic, whether other followed links or mentions accompanied the same coverage event, rather than assuming the nofollow link itself was the singular causal mechanism.
