A DoFollow link is the default in HTML: crawlers may treat it as a regular hyperlink. A NoFollow link includes rel="nofollow" (or related values such as sponsored / ugc). Search engines have said they use those hints as signals, not hard commands. Either way, the host chooses the markup.
Your brief should match the row, not a wish list after the article is live. Asking us to “just remove the nofollow” once the editor has published is asking us to rewrite their site. We will not do that.
What the attributes actually are
DoFollow is not a special badge we add. It is the absence of a restricting rel value. NoFollow tells crawlers the host does not want to vouch for the destination in the usual way. sponsored is the value many commercial hosts should use on paid mentions. ugc is for user-generated copy. Publishers mix these. Some use more than one.
None of this is a secret ranking lever you can buy in bulk. It is HTML. View source on the live page and you will see it. If a vendor talks about DoFollow as if it were a luxury trim on the same junk site, they are selling a label, not a host.
What Vexa does
Each publisher row states the link type we can request. We ask for that type. We report the live URL. We do not log into the host CMS later and strip NoFollow. If the live page does not match the row, tell us — we chase the publisher or replace the placement from the sheet.
Sometimes an editor adds NoFollow after they accepted a DoFollow brief. That happens. Magazines change policy. New interns paste a house template. We treat that as a live-page mismatch, not as you being difficult. We go back to the host with the row we sold. If they will not correct it, we replace.
We also will not promise that a DoFollow link “passes more juice” in a way you can schedule. Search systems change how they read hints. Your job is a mention on a host you approved. The attribute is part of that mention, not a separate product.
How to brief it
If you only want DoFollow, filter the sheet and say so before we lock rows. Do not approve a mix and then reject every NoFollow URL at delivery. Mixing both is normal on a real web. News and magazines often mark commercial mentions. Blogs vary.
A relevant NoFollow mention can still send a person. A journalist, a buyer, a partner can click. That click does not care about rel. A DoFollow link on an irrelevant site is still a poor mention. Nobody clicks a footer farm, and the attribute will not make the farm editorial.
If legal wants every paid link marked sponsored, say that in the first brief. Some rows can request it. Some hosts will not. We will not invent compliance they refused.
Myths that waste a week
Myth: NoFollow links are worthless. They are worth whatever the audience is worth. They are a weaker ranking signal in many models. That is not the same as zero.
Myth: You can convert NoFollow to DoFollow with a plugin after go-live. Not on someone else’s CMS. Not ethically. Not as our deliverable.
Myth: A campaign of only DoFollow exact-match anchors looks “natural.” It looks like a campaign. Mix hosts, mix formats, mix anchors. Read what makes a good backlink before you fight about attributes.
How to check the live page
Open the URL we send. Find your link. Inspect it. If you do not read HTML, send us the URL and what you expected from the row. We will look at the same markup. Do not use a third-party “DoFollow checker” as the only source of truth — they get templates and lazy-loaded content wrong.
If the attribute matches the row, the placement is done. If it does not, we work the host or the replacement. That is the process. It is not glamorous. It is how you avoid paying twice for the same argument.
Where this sits in a campaign
Pick hosts first. Pick formats second. Pick attributes third. Teams that invert that order spend a week arguing about rel on a site they would never show a customer. Filter the sheet for the link type you need, then approve the domain like any other row.
If your only instruction is “all DoFollow, any site,” you will get DoFollow on hosts that do not fit. That is a successful attribute and a failed mention. We would rather lose the row than pretend those are the same thing. Send the niche with the attribute rule attached, not the attribute rule on its own. We will filter the sheet from there.
Paid mentions and sponsored
If you buy a placement, many hosts should mark it. sponsored exists for that. Some already use NoFollow for the same idea. Some use both. We request what the row lists. We do not rewrite their disclosure policy after they publish, and we do not hide that the row was paid.
Your counsel may want a specific rel value on every commercial mention. Put that in the first brief. We will filter to hosts that can take it. Hosts that will not are not a surprise at delivery — they are a row you should not have booked.
Do not treat sponsored as a defect. Treat it as honest HTML on a paid mention. A clean sponsored link on a site your buyer reads is still a better clipping than an unmarked DoFollow on a site you would not show them. Attribute second. Host first.