What's the Best Dofollow to Nofollow Ratio? (Backed by Data)

Most healthy backlink profiles fall between 60-90% dofollow and 10-40% nofollow. That's not of Google’s rules - it's just what happens when a site earns links organically from a mix of sources.

The reality is a bit more complicated than this, so let's break down where that range comes from, when it doesn't apply, and how to use it.

The Data: What a "Normal" Ratio Looks Like

Across backlink studies and tool-level analyses, the dofollow-to-nofollow ratio for a typical, organically grown website tends to cluster around 60-90% dofollow and 10-40% nofollow. That's the range you'll see cited by Ahrefs-style analyses and most SEO practitioners.

Why does it land there instead of at 100% dofollow? Because real link profiles are messy by nature. People share your content on Reddit, Twitter, and Facebook (mostly nofollow). They mention you in blog comments and forum threads (usually nofollow). Wikipedia links out to you (always nofollow). Meanwhile, editorial mentions, guest posts, and genuine citations tend to be dofollow by default.

A site with zero nofollow links basically never happens naturally - and that's exactly why an all-dofollow profile can raise a flag. It suggests every link was placed rather than earned.

Note: I will leave the studies I’ve reviewed when writing this piece at the bottom of the page.

Does Google Care About the Dofollow to Nofollow Ratio?

Google has been fairly direct that there's no ideal ratio to chase. Google's own Search Advocate John Mueller has said as much when asked directly - there's no fixed dofollow to nofollow ratio SEO teams should be targeting.

That lines up with what a lot of working SEOs will tell you if you ask around: plenty of sites rank perfectly well with 98% dofollow links, and plenty of others do fine with a majority nofollow profile. The ratio itself isn't a ranking factor. It's a byproduct of how naturally a site's links were built.

It also helps to remember that since 2019, Google treats the nofollow attribute as a hint rather than a strict directive. That means some "nofollow" links may still get crawled and factored in anyway, which makes chasing an exact percentage even less useful - you don't actually know how Google is treating every link in your profile in the first place.

So, don't reverse-engineer your link building around a target ratio. Build the range as a byproduct of earning links from diverse, relevant sources - and only get concerned if your profile is wildly lopsided in one direction with no obvious explanation.

Ideal Dofollow to Nofollow Ratio by Industry

The "ideal" dofollow to nofollow ratio isn't the same across every niche. It depends heavily on where your links naturally come from.

Niche

Typical Dofollow %

Why

Medical / YMYL

70%+

Heavy reliance on editorial citations and authoritative references

E-commerce / Coupon sites

~40-55%

Product feeds, affiliate links, and ad placements skew nofollow

Blogs / Publishers

60-80%

Editorial mentions and guest contributions are usually dofollow

Local business

Lower dofollow share

Directories and citation sites frequently use nofollow

If your site sits outside its expected range, that's more useful context than comparing yourself to a generic industry-wide number. A coupon site with 50/50 dofollow-to-nofollow is typical for that niche. A medical site at 50/50 might be worth a closer look.

When Is Your Dofollow to Nofollow Ratio a Red Flag

A few patterns are worth investigating:

• 100% dofollow, especially from a handful of domains. This is the pattern that tends to draw scrutiny - it looks manufactured rather than earned, particularly if those links appeared in a short window.
• A sudden shift in ratio tied to a traffic drop. If your nofollow-to-dofollow balance changed sharply right before rankings fell, it's a thread worth pulling - not because the ratio caused the drop, but because whatever caused the ratio to shift (a burst of low-quality links, a disavow, a lost high-authority link) probably also affected rankings.
• Heavy reliance on a small number of referring domains. A good ratio built from five domains is a different risk profile than the same ratio built from 500. Diversity of referring domains matters more than the ratio itself.

If you want a deeper look at what's creating these shifts, our guide on backlink profile audits walks through how to separate ratio noise from real problems.

How to Check Your Ratio (and What to Do With It)

1. Pull your full backlink profile. Use a monitoring tool that segments links by attribute.
2. Look at trends. A single point-in-time ratio tells you very little. What matters is whether your ratio has shifted sharply, and why.
3. Segment by section or content type if your site has distinct verticals. A sports site's news section might attract more dofollow links than its live-scores section, which gets shared constantly on social. Averaging the two together hides a useful signal.
4. Re-check quarterly, not obsessively. This is a simple health check.

This is honestly the one part of link auditing I'd push back on doing manually or from memory - trying to eyeball your ratio from a spreadsheet export gets messy fast, especially once you're tracking hundreds of referring domains. 

In Monitolink’s backlink monitoring tool, the dofollow-to-nofollow split is broken out automatically as part of your backlink monitoring dashboard, so you can see the current ratio - and how it's trending over time - without manually tagging every link. 

If you're auditing a client site or your own, it's worth looking at the real-time number rather than guessing. You can start a 14-day free trial, no credit card required, to see where your own profile sits.

If part of your concern is links that used to be dofollow and quietly changed, or links that disappeared entirely, that's a slightly different problem than ratio - worth reading up on in our guide to recovering lost backlinks or checking Monitolink's link reclamation feature.

The Bottom Line

There's no single best dofollow to nofollow ratio, and any article promising you an exact number to hit is oversimplifying. What the data supports is a range - roughly 60-90% dofollow to 10-40% nofollow for most sites - that shows up naturally when links are earned rather than engineered. Use it as a sanity check, not a target. Focus on link quality, referring domain diversity, and relevance, and a healthy ratio tends to take care of itself.

FAQ

What's the common “60-80% and 10-40%” ratio used commonly in blogs?

Nobody I found, including Ahrefs itself, cites a rigorous published dataset with the exact 60-80% and 20-40% split, but that’s commonly used in SEO blogs. That range appears to be a rounded synthesis that's propagated across the blogs. These don’t trace back to any data or study. That’s just commonly cited. 

What's a good nofollow to dofollow ratio for e-commerce sites? 

E-commerce and coupon sites often run closer to 40-55% dofollow due to product feeds, affiliate links, and ad placements - lower than the general benchmark, and that's normal for the niche.

Can too many dofollow links hurt rankings? 

Not directly, but an unnaturally high concentration of dofollow links from very few domains, appearing in a short time span, is a pattern that can draw closer scrutiny.

Do nofollow links help SEO at all? 

Yes, indirectly. They drive referral traffic, support brand visibility, and contribute to a natural-looking, diverse link profile, even though they don't pass link equity in the traditional sense.

How often should I check my backlink ratio? 

Quarterly is reasonable for most sites. The goal is spotting meaningful shifts over time, not obsessing over a live number.

Sources

1. Ahrefs. Nofollow vs. Follow Links: Everything You Need to Know. Accessed on July 16, 2026. https://ahrefs.com/blog/nofollow-links/
2. Ahrefs. Do Links From Pages With Traffic Help You Rank Higher? [Ahrefs Study], Accessed on July 16, 2026. https://ahrefs.com/blog/links-with-traffic-study/