Learn how to fix the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute SEMrush Site Audit warning now!
If you’ve encountered the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning in your SEMrush site audit report then you’re not alone.
This guide explains why internal links should generally be dofollow and provides clear steps toward addressing this issue and, in the process, enhancing your website’s SEO performance.
This page was updated on May 21, 2025.
Why the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning is flagged
This Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning is noted because there are very few reasons where internal links should not be crawled so setting the relationship (rel) attribute to “nofollow” is likely unintentional.
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Schedule An AppointmentPrerequisites
This tutorial requires the following:
- A SEMrush site audit report that has identified an article that has the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning.
- Write / edit access to the WordPress page or post that has this warning.
- Chrome Browser or a tool which you can use to view the page source.
Step One: Run a SEMrush Site Audit report.
The first step requires that we have a SEMrush Site Audit report which contains the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning so if we do not already have this report, then we need to execute a SEMrush site audit on the target website.
The image below provides us with one example including the page with the warning along with the Link URL that needs to be changed.
It’s likely that if you’re here reading this Technical SEO post that this step has already been completed.
Step Two: Locate the link with the errant nofollow relationship (rel) attribute set.
If we view the page source in the Chrome browser then we see that the link pointing to mces.thospfuller.com has a rel attribute value set to nofollow and we need to remove this.
Step Three: Fix the warning by removing the nofollow value from the rel attribute.
In the third step we address the warning by removing the rel attribute’s nofollow value from the internal link.
The ThosPFuller.com website is based on the Elementor Page Builder plugin and below we can see that the link to mces.thospfuller.com has the rel attribute value set to nofollow — we need to:
- Untick this tick box
- Update the link (smash that “Update” button).
- Publish the changes made to this page.
Note that this is a WordPress-focused article however it should be possible at this point to fix this warning on other content management systems (CMS), you’ll just need to figure out how the same thing is achieved in whatever your CMS.
Step Four: Execute another SEMrush Site Audit and check that the warning has been addressed.
We should check that all of the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warnings for the article we’re working on have been correctly addressed and we can do this by simply running another SEMrush Site Audit and then reviewing the results.
This step is the same as what we executed in the first step of this tutorial.
Benefits of fixing the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning
Here are five reasons why you should address the Outgoing Internal Links Contain Nofollow Attribute warning:
Improved link equity flow
Removing rel=”nofollow” allows authority to pass to the linked page, which may help it rank better.
Enhanced crawlability
Search engines, in particular Google, are more likely to follow and index the linked page thereby improving site coverage and visibility.
Stronger site architecture signals
Internal links help define site structure; removing nofollow strengthens how search engines understand page relationships.
Better topical relevance
Anchor text from followed links contributes to keyword relevance and can support the ranking of the linked page.
Cleaner SEO audit results
SEO tools such as SEMrush may flag internal nofollow links therefore removing them may improve site audit scores and reduce noise in reports.
This concludes this article — please add your questions and comments below.
See Also
- Learn how to fix the Duplicate Google Chose Different Canonical Than User issue fast!
- Learn how to fix the incorrect pages found in sitemap.xml error now!
- Learn how to add a Elementor full-page background image now!
- Find other useful articles in the SEO and Technical SEO categories.
Frequently Asked Questions
To fix nofollow attributes in outgoing internal links, locate any internal <a> tags that include rel=’nofollow’ and remove the nofollow value from the relationship (rel) attribute.
In WordPress, this is often done by editing the link settings in the visual editor and by unchecking the option to add the nofollow attribute.
In most cases, you should not use nofollow on internal links.
Internal links help search engines crawl your site, distribute link equity, and understand your content structure.
Using rel=’nofollow’ on internal links prevents that, which can hurt SEO and limit indexability.
Exceptions are rare and may include login pages, cart pages, or other non-indexable URLs.
In order to fix internal nofollow links in WordPress, edit each affected link and remove the ‘nofollow’ value from the rel attribute.
Open the post or page in the WordPress editor, select the link, and uncheck the option labeled ‘Add rel=”nofollow” to link‘.
After publishing the page, the link will function normally and support your website’s SEO.
In order to remove the nofollow attribute from a link, locate the rel=’nofollow’ value in the link’s HTML and delete it.
In WordPress, you can remove the no follow attribute by editing the post or page, selecting the link, and then unchecking the option labeled ‘Add rel=”nofollow” to link’.
After saving or publishing your changes, the link will no longer be marked as nofollow.
The rel=’nofollow’ attribute tells Google not to follow the embedded link or pass any link equity to the destination page.
This means Google will not crawl the link or treat it as a signal for ranking purposes.
The rel=’nofollow’ attribute is often used for untrusted or user-generated links, and should generally be avoided on internal links.
