Nofollow Links

Hello!

This is exactly why we don’t implement nonstandard stuff like that — because you’ll lose it.

TSF has no methods built-in to affect your post-content (like this feature) because we’re against vendor lock-in.

So, I’m afraid you’ll have to resort to other means, such as installing Gutenberg Block Editor Toolkit. That Toolkit gives you back the option, but it won’t read Rank Math’s values; you must install and have active Rank Math to get those nofollow attributes back.

There’s also an ongoing discussion on bringing this feature natively to WordPress, which I wholeheartedly support: https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/23011.

Lastly, we also have an issue open about this, right here: https://github.com/sybrew/the-seo-framework/issues/568.

I hope this covers everything, and I hope the plugin linked helps you along!

I did notice that you add “noopener”. Is that sufficient? I can insert nofollow in the text editor. What is TSFs advice on using nofollow? Should I only use on untrusted sites or would noopener be just fine?

Hello!

noopener is not an attribute for search engines but browsers; simply put, it helps with disjointing tabs for improved security. If I’m not mistaken, WordPress automatically adds that attribute to all external target=_blank links in the editor.

You should apply nofollow to any link you do not endorse or want to lower the chance of Google crawling it (such as a login page). Google has a concise guide about this: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guidelines/qualify-outbound-links.