The “nofollow” option for external links is not working.

Hello,

We apologize for the issue you are facing with the nofollow option for external links not working. It sounds like you’ve already taken some important steps by checking the settings and clearing your cache. Here are a few things you can verify to troubleshoot this issue:

1. Nofollow External Links Setting: Ensure that the Nofollow External Links option is enabled in Rank Math. You can find this under Rank Math SEO → General Settings → Links.
   

2. Nofollow Domains: Make sure that the domain you want to apply the nofollow attribute to is listed in the Nofollow Domains field. If you have multiple domains, ensure they are entered one per line.
   

3. Check for Conflicts: Sometimes, other plugins or themes can conflict with Rank Math’s functionality. Try temporarily disabling other plugins (like W3 Total Cache) to see if that resolves the issue.

4. Inspecting the HTML: After making these changes, check the page source code again to see if the rel="nofollow" attribute is being added correctly. You can do this by right-clicking on the link and selecting Inspect in your browser.
   

If you’ve gone through these steps and the issue persists, please reply to this ticket with your website URL so that a human agent from our support team can assist you further. Thank you for raising this concern, and we look forward to helping you resolve it!

Sources:
How to Nofollow Specific External Links in WordPress With Rank Math SEO » Rank Math
How to Setup Rank Math SEO Plugin Properly
Nofollow vs. Dofollow Links: Understanding SEO Impact » Rank Math

Hello,

In this case, assuming you are using the latest version of all the plugins and the themes (please update if not yet), this can be caused by conflicting plugin/theme with Rank Math.

To determine that, please follow this troubleshooting guide:
https://rankmath.com/kb/check-plugin-conflicts/

Here is a video you can follow as well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcIWRhcUP2c

Only the site admin would know and your users won’t be affected by this troubleshooting.

Looking forward to helping you.

Hello,

In this case, we might need to take a closer look at the settings. Please edit the first post on this ticket and include your WordPress & FTP logins in the designated Sensitive Data section.

Please do take a complete backup of your website before sharing the information with us.

It is completely secure and only our support staff has access to that section. If you want, you can use the below plugin to generate a temporary login URL to your website and share that with us instead:

https://wordpress.org/plugins/temporary-login-without-password/

You can use the above plugin in conjunction with the WP Security Audit Log to monitor what changes our staff might make on your website (if any):

https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-security-audit-log/

We really look forward to helping you.