nofollow is a value that can be assigned to the rel attribute of an HTML. An element to instruct some search engines that the hyperlink should not influence the ranking of the link's target in the search engine's index.
For an affiliate link, nofollow will help search engines identify which links should not be used to influence the ranking of the page.
Why use nofollow?
Using nofollow is your way of telling search engines to not follow the link on your page so it won't affect their Page Rank.
Where to use nofollow?
Google advised site owners to use nofollow when linking to external sites such as the following:
- paid links
- untrusted contents
- press releases
- advertorials
- affiliate links and
- native advertising
If you are linking to internal links, feel free to NOT use nofollow. Let those link juice flow.
How to use nofollow
When you are adding a new Affiliate link, you will find Link Options on the sidebar. You have the option to enable the nofollow(Yes) or disable the nofollow(No).
*Note: If you choose global, it will affect all the link even if you manually add the nofollow attribute to the link in question.