Dofollow premium vs. nofollow inserts: when the discount is worth it

Dofollow premium vs. nofollow inserts: when the discount is worth it

A pricing question that keeps splitting rooms.

— An agency blog argued the dofollow premium (often 2-3x) is only justified on genuinely topical pages; everywhere else you're overpaying for a status flag.
— Counterpoint on a forum: a few practitioners reported buying nofollow/UGC inserts on high-traffic pages purely for referral clicks and brand mentions, ignoring link equity entirely — and being fine with it.
— Also circulating: a thread noting that a 'dofollow' insert on a page with 80 outbound links leaks almost nothing, so the attribute is doing less than the buyer assumes.

Editor's note: the comparison isn't dofollow vs nofollow — it's link equity vs. real human traffic, and you should know which one you're actually buying.

Pick of the week: pay the dofollow premium only when the host page itself has equity to pass; otherwise buy for clicks.