Do these links pass weight and how we check it
A link with a nofollow attribute also makes sense — it provides mention and traffic — but it does not pass weight, which is usually the reason for buying links. Therefore, we check this separately for each platform and store the result as a flag: whether it passes weight or not.
Why it should be checked in the rendered DOM
The most non-obvious place in the whole topic. Checking "downloaded HTML and looked at the rel attribute" lies in both directions, and we have two specific examples from the pool:
- telegra.ph returns
rel="nofollow"in the source code, but its own editor script removes it before the robot sees the page. A simple check will declare the link as nofollow — in reality, it is dofollow. - notepin returns a clean link, while nofollow is added in the browser. A simple check will declare it dofollow — in reality, it is not.
Therefore, the test opens the page in a real browser, waits for rendering, and reads the final DOM — what the search robot will actually see. At the same time, the meta tag robots is recorded: a page with noindex devalues the link regardless of rel.
What the measurements show
| Indicator | Value as of 12.09.2026 |
|---|---|
| Platforms with weight test completed | 26 out of 72 |
| Of which pass weight (dofollow) | 13 |
| Of which do not pass (nofollow) | 13 |
| Checked live publications in the test | 74 |
The flag "does not pass weight" does not mean automatic exclusion: a platform with high indexability and a large audience can remain in the pool in a secondary role — mentions and link diversity are also part of the profile. However, it receives lower priority than a dofollow platform under equal conditions.
Special case: PDF and non-standard formats
In one of the channels, a publication is a PDF document with a link. In PDF format, the rel attribute does not exist in principle: the link is either formatted as a transition action or it is not there at all. The test for such cases downloads the file and looks for the transition action inside, because the browser DOM for PDF is empty and a regular check would always respond "no link".
Connection to price
The rate is not divided into "dofollow links" and "nofollow links": you pay for the cascade as a whole, and the platform itself distributes publications across platforms considering priority. What is included in the price is detailed in the article "Rates and what the price consists of".