Guide · SEO and links
Dofollow and nofollow links in press releases: what to expect
In short
A dofollow link is an ordinary link with no rel attribute; a nofollow link carries one that asks Google not to treat it as an endorsement. The site that publishes your release decides which kind its links are, so distribution gives a mix of both. Either way the link is a path that readers and crawlers can take to your site; Google decides what weight, if any, to give it. What you control is where the link points and what its text says: your website or the page the news is about, with your brand name or web address as the link text.
What the two words mean
A link with no rel attribute is an ordinary link. Google documents three values a site can add: nofollow, sponsored and ugc. Google announced on 10 September 2019 that it treats all three as hints rather than strict instructions (for crawling and indexing, from 1 March 2020), so it can still take such a link into account alongside other signals. “Dofollow” is the everyday word for a link without these attributes.
Who decides which a link is
The publishing site, not the company that wrote the release. News and finance sites format the links in the releases they carry in their own way, so a release usually ends up with some dofollow and some nofollow links. Both kinds bring readers to your site, and a mix is normal.
What you control
You choose the destination and the link text. Point the link at your website or at the page the news is about, use your brand name or web address as the link text, and keep it to one or two links. Google’s spam policies single out keyword-optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts and press releases, and brand-name links are the natural alternative.
What each Vokolla package carries
The media list names the outlets in each package. Our own DoFollow Links release carried a dofollow link to vokolla.com on every live page when we checked on 4 November 2026, ten days after it was published.
| Package | Price | Links |
|---|---|---|
| Brand Starter | US$69 | Links on 300+ outlets, including openPR (DR 81) and 25 city news sites; each site sets its own link attributes |
| Global Reach | US$129 | A mix of dofollow and nofollow links, including newspaper and TV-station finance pages on FinancialContent (DR 82, a third-party estimate, October 2026) |
| Premium Media | US$379 | A mix of dofollow and nofollow links; adds AP News, USA Today, Barchart and StreetInsider |
| Global Impact | US$659 | A mix of dofollow and nofollow links on 20+ high-traffic outlets |
| DoFollow Links | US$129 | Dofollow links on 100+ news and finance sites, including FinancialContent and local newspapers’ finance pages |
| Podcast Reach | US$129 | Links from 100+ podcast platforms such as Spotify, Apple and Amazon; each platform sets its own link attributes |
How to check a link yourself
Open a page from your report, right-click and choose View page source, and search for your domain. If the link tag has rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc", it is the second kind; without them it is a normal link. Save the list with the date, and check again after a month.
What release links do for search
Google says it primarily finds pages through links from pages it has already crawled, so a link from an indexed news page is one more way in for a new site. Links from releases also bring readers who are checking you out. Our guide to press releases and SEO covers the full picture.
Publish with Vokolla
Vokolla shows one public price per release, from US$69, with no quote, sales call or subscription. You write the release or draft it with the Vokolla AI assistant, choose the package, pay online and get a report with every live link, and an editor reviews each release before it goes out. You can try it first with one free release every 30 days; every package is on the pricing page.
Questions people ask
Is a nofollow link worthless?
No. Google treats nofollow as a hint, and the link still sends readers to your site and puts your name on an independent page.
Do I need dofollow links?
A mix is normal. If link building is your goal, the DoFollow Links package is built for it; for presence on many sites, other packages fit.
What should the link text be?
Your brand name or web address. Avoid stuffing a keyword phrase into the link text.
How many links should a release have?
One or two: your website or the page the news is about.
Vokolla pages for this step
- Packages →Six packages from US$69 to US$659 per release, each with a report of the live links.
- Pricing →Every package’s public price, reach and what it includes, side by side.
- Free press release →One free release every 30 days on news sites, after editor review.
- AI assistant →Connect your AI assistant to Vokolla to draft, check and save a release.
Sources
Written and checked by the Vokolla editorial team. Vokolla provides the packages described here; prices and outlets are as published on vokolla.com on the date above, and the results quoted come from our own releases. Search rankings depend on many factors, so no distribution service can guarantee them.
- Google Search Central: Qualify your outbound links (updated 2025-12-10) — checked 2026-11-04
- Google Search Central Blog: Evolving “nofollow” – new ways to identify the nature of links (2019-09-10) — checked 2026-11-04
- Google Search Central: Spam policies for Google web search (updated 2026-08-28) — checked 2026-11-04
- Google Search Central: SEO Starter Guide (updated 2025-12-10) — checked 2026-11-04
- Vokolla publishing records: our own releases on USA Today and partner networks (October 2026), Google, Bing and AI-answer checks on 4 Nov 2026 (internal records; the method is described on this page) — checked 2026-11-04
- Vokolla: Press release distribution pricing (packages, prices and reach) — checked 2026-11-04
- Vokolla: Media list by package (Domain Rating and monthly visits are third-party estimates, October 2026) — checked 2026-11-04