“Noreferrer noopener” is an HTML attribute that can be added to outgoing links.
What do these tags do, and how do they affect your SEO efforts?

In this article, I will explain the difference between the noreferrer and noopener tags and

Nofollow tag
What are the differences and how each label is used
Impact on SEO.

  • What is rel = “noreferrer”?

  • When to use rel = “noreferrer”?

  • Rel = “noreferrer” and SEO

  • Noreferrer and WordPress

  • Noreferrer and membership links

  • The difference between Nofollow and Noreferrer

  • What is rel = “noopener”?

  • Rel = “noopener” and SEO

Let’s start with some definitions.

What is rel = “noreferrer”?

By removing referral information from the HTTP header, you can prevent referral information from being delivered to the target web site.

This means that in Google Analytics, traffic from links with rel = “noreferrer” attributes will show up as”

Direct flow “,

Instead of”

Introduction “.

Here’s what the Noreferrer attribute looks like in an HTML view:

<a href="https://www.example.com" rel="noreferrer">Link to Example.com</a>



Here’s an example to better understand this:

Suppose you link from Web site A to Web site B without the “noreferrer” tag.

The owner of Site B can see the traffic from Site A under the “REFERRALS” section when viewing the “acquisition” report in Google Analytics.

Traffic from links without rel = “noreferrer” is shown as referral traffic

When you use the “noreferrer” tag to link from Site A to Site B, all traffic from Site A to Site B will show up in Google Analytics as direct traffic (rather than referrals).

Traffic from links with rel = “noreferrer” is shown as direct traffic

When to use rel = “noreferrer”?

Use the rel = “noreferrer” attribute on outgoing links when you do not want other sites to know that you are linking to these sites.
Can’t think of any good reason for doing this, but it is what it is.

absolute
Don’t
Using the rel = “noreferrer” attribute on internal links can mess up your Google Analytics report.

Rel = “noreferrer” and SEO

Adding the Noreferrer tag to the link does not have a direct impact

SEO

.

You can use it without worrying about anything.

But it does have an indirect impact on your link building and promotion efforts for the following reasons:

One way to get the attention of other webmasters is to link to their sites.
All webmasters check their Google analytics daily, especially “referral traffic.”

When they see traffic coming from a site, they’re likely to check it out and share the page on social media, follow the author, or even decide to return the favor by returning a link.

This is great for SEO, and in fact, it’s an effective way to get links from other sites that Google recommends (see Google documentation for quotes).

Google advice on how to attract new links

This will not happen when you attach a Noreferrer tag to links, because traffic to your site will not show up as “referrals” in Google Analytics, so other webmasters will not know that you have linked to them.

You might be thinking,”

Why talk about this, and I’m not going to add it to my link, and that’s the end of the story

“.

The reason this problem is prevalent is that WordPress by default adds the ‘noreferrer’ flag to all outgoing links that are set to open in a ‘new TAB’.

Noreferrer and WordPress

So, if you use WordPress, you should know that when you add an external link to content and set it to open in a “new label” (target = “_ blank”), WordPress automatically adds rel = “noopener noreferrer” to the link.

They did this to improve the security of the rich WordPress editor (TinyMCE) and prevent it from happening

Label to capture
And other phishing attacks.

Here’s an example:

<a href="https://www.externalsite.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">my external link</a>

As mentioned above, this will prevent any information from being delivered to the new TAB, with the end result that any traffic from your site to the linked site (by clicking on the link) will not show up in Google Analytics.

How to remove rel = “noreferrer” from WordPress links

The easiest way to prevent WordPress from automatically adding properties to external links is not to open links in a new TAB.
In other words, open the link in the same window.

This is the simplest way to solve this problem, but the downside is that users clicking on external links will leave your site, which can increase bounce rates, reduce site stay time, and so on.

However, since most of the traffic now comes from mobile devices, you don’t have to worry about users quitting your site because the behavior of “new tabs” on mobile devices makes it difficult for users to go back to the previous window.

There are plug-ins that prevent WordPress from adding rel = “noreferrer” to external links, but they are only in use

TinyMCE
Instead of the new editor (
Gutenberg
)
When work
.

My advice is not to get confused about this, just avoid opening external links in new tabs and you’ll get started.

Noreferrer and membership links

Noreferrer has no effect on member links.
The reason is that most membership programs do not rely on “referral traffic” to grant conversions, but rather on the membership ID contained in the link.
Such as:

<a href="//www.semrush.com/sem/?ref=15096612" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">

Therefore, you need not worry.

The difference between Nofollow and Noreferrer

When you add rel = “nofollow” to external links, you basically instruct search engines not to pass any PageRank from one page to another.
In other words, you tell them to ignore the link for SEO purposes.

The difference between nofollow and Noreferrer is that noreferrer does not pass any reference information to the browser, but links to it.
With NoFollow, the referral information is passed to the browser, but the link is not followed.

Therefore, they are not the same thing.
Use Nofollow on untrusted links, or noreferrer if you don’t want other sites to know they’re linked to them.

What is rel = “noopener”?

Rel = “noopener” is an HTML attribute that can be added to external links.
It prevents the open page from gaining any access to the original page.

Here’s an example of a link with the rel = “noopener” tag:

<a href="https://www.example.com" rel="noopener">Link to Example.com</a>

For security reasons, WordPress automatically adds this link to all external links that open in a new TAB, and you are advised to keep it.

If you are not on WordPress, it is recommended to add rel = “noopener” to all external links opened in the new TAB.

Rel = “noopener” and SEO

Noopener has little impact on your SEO, so you can safely use it to enhance the security of your site.

Focus on learning

Dealing with HTML tags and attributes is confusing to many people, but noreferrer and Noopener are not.

None of them will negatively impact your SEO, so feel free to use them.

If you are using WordPress, these tags are automatically added to external links that open in new tabs.

Noopener is needed to enhance the security of your site and prevent other sites from accessing your page (through a browser session).

The Noreferrer is used to protect referrals from being passed on to targeted sites, which also hides referral traffic in Google Analytics.

If you want other sites to treat your site’s traffic as “referral traffic,” just don’t open external links in a new TAB.
This will prevent WordPress from automatically adding properties to links, and everything works fine.

Nofollow is different from noreferrer.
When rel = “nofollow” is added to a link, it instructs search engines not to use the link for SEO.
Noreferrer does indeed pass link juice from one site to another.

If you’re still confused about the role of rel = “noreferrer noopener,” let me know in the comments.