You just landed a backlink, or you’re about to publish a guest post, and you need to know one thing fast: is that link dofollow or nofollow? This isn’t a small detail. A dofollow link passes ranking credit to your site, while a nofollow link doesn’t, at least not directly. If you’re building links, tracking a guest post campaign, or auditing your own site, guessing isn’t good enough.
The good news is you don’t need to be a seo audit professional to find this out. There are three reliable ways to check a link’s status, and each one fits a different situation. Some work best when you’re checking a single link. Others are built for scanning a whole page in one go. And if you’re checking links regularly, there’s a faster option that skips the manual work entirely.
Below, you’ll find all three methods, in order from simplest to fastest, along with when to use each one and what the results actually mean for your SEO.
Why Checking Backlinks Matters
A dofollow link passes ranking credit from the linking page to yours. A nofollow link, including the sponsored and ugc variants, doesn’t pass that credit directly. If you’re tracking backlinks for SEO, knowing which type you have tells you whether that link is contributing to your rankings or mainly driving traffic and visibility instead.
For the full breakdown of how these link types work and why nofollow links still hold value, see our guide on dofollow vs nofollow links.
Method 1: Manual Inspection
This is the most basic method, and it works for checking one link at a time.
Step 1: Right-click the link you want to check.
Step 2: Select Inspect (or Inspect Element). This opens your browser’s developer tools and highlights the link’s HTML code.
Step 3: Look at the anchor tag for a rel attribute.
Here’s what to look for:
- No rel attribute, or rel=”follow” — the link is dofollow
- rel=”nofollow” — the link is nofollow
- rel=”sponsored” — marked as a paid or affiliate link
- rel=”ugc” — marked as user-generated content, like a comment or forum post
Method 2: Browser Extension
If you need to check every link on a page at once, a browser extension is faster than inspecting each one by hand.
Once installed, these extensions scan the page automatically and color-code every link based on its status, usually one color for dofollow and another for nofollow. Some also flag sponsored and ugc links separately.
How to use one:
Step 1: Install a link-checking extension from your browser’s extension store.
Step 2: Open the page you want to check.
Step 3: Activate the extension. Links on the page will be highlighted based on their type.
Method 3: Use a Free Backlinks Checker / Dofollow Checker Tool
If you’re checking links regularly, whether that’s auditing guest post placements, reviewing a client’s backlink profile, or vetting a site before you pitch it, manually inspecting each link stops being practical. This is where a dedicated tool saves time.
How it works:
Step 1: Paste the page URL into a backlinks checker dofollow checker.
Step 2: Run the check.
Step 3: Review the results. The tool scans every outbound link on the page and sorts them by status, so you can see at a glance which links are dofollow and which are nofollow.
Best for: vetting a guest post site before you commit to writing for it, auditing a whole page in one pass, or confirming that a placement you paid for actually delivers the link type you were promised.
Quick Comparison Table
| Method | Best For | Speed | Limitation |
| Manual Inspection | Checking a single link | Slow | Not practical for many links |
| Browser Extension | Scanning a full page at once | Medium | Still one page at a time |
| Backlinks Checker Tool | Auditing pages or vetting placements regularly | Fast | Bulk checks across many URLs may need multiple passes |
FAQs
Do I need to check every single backlink I get?
Not necessarily. It’s more useful to check backlinks that matter most, like guest post placements, paid mentions, or links from sites you’re actively tracking, rather than every single one.
Can a site change a dofollow link to nofollow later without telling me?
Yes. Some sites update their link attributes after publishing, sometimes without notice. This is why it’s worth rechecking important placements every few months rather than assuming the status never changes.
Does Google Search Console show link type?
Google Search Console shows which sites link to you, but it doesn’t clearly separate dofollow from nofollow links in its reports. You’ll still need one of the three methods above to confirm the type.
Is there a way to check backlinks in bulk?
Some tools support checking multiple URLs at once, though most free tools are built for checking one page at a time. If you’re auditing a large number of links regularly, this is worth factoring into which tool you choose.