Are clickable images without an <a> tag really invisible to Google?

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Official statement

A link is defined as an HTML <a> tag with an href attribute. Images themselves are not considered links unless they are embedded within an <a> element. Nofollow tags only apply to real links.

13:39

🎥 Source video

Extracted from a Google Search Central video

⏱ 1h00 💬 EN 📅 27/07/2018 ✂ 33 statements

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Official statement from July 27, 2018 (7 years ago)

⚠ A more recent statement exists on this topic Does JavaScript server-side rendering hide invisible SEO errors from users? John Mueller · May 29, 2020 View statement →

TL;DR

Google strictly defines a link as an HTML <a> tag with an href attribute. An image alone, even if clickable via JavaScript or CSS, does not count as a link for the search engine. The nofollow or sponsored attributes only apply to real links, meaning any alternative navigation structure risks being ignored for crawling and PageRank transfer.

What you need to understand

Why does Google limit its definition of a link to the tag?

The answer lies in the historical architecture of the web and crawling technical constraints. Google built its engine on the analysis of traditional HTML link graphs, those that have existed since the 1990s. The tag with its href attribute forms the universal standard for declaring a relationship between two pages.

Modern alternatives like clickable buttons in JavaScript, interactive CSS areas, or event listeners do not generate a signal that can be utilized by Googlebot during the initial crawl. The bot follows links declared in the DOM at the time of HTML parsing, even before the full execution of JavaScript. Therefore, an image or a div made clickable by a script remains invisible.

What does this definition imply for clickable images?

An image can serve as a clickable area for a user without ever communicating that information to Google. If you use an onclick event on an tag to trigger navigation, Googlebot will detect no link. The engine will see only a static image without a declared destination.

For an image to become a link in Google's eyes, it must be nested within an tag. The correct structure looks like this: . Without this encapsulation, you lose the navigation signal, the PageRank transfer, and the bot's ability to discover the target page.

Do nofollow attributes work differently depending on the context?

No, and that's precisely what Mueller clarifies here. The rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored" or rel="ugc" attributes only apply to valid tags. You cannot apply nofollow to an image, a button, or a

element and expect Google to take it into account.

This restriction avoids ambiguities. If an image without an tag is not a link, then it cannot be followed or nofollowed. The very concept of nofollow presupposes the existence of a link in the technical sense. Any attempt to bypass this rule with JavaScript or custom attributes fails from a crawling perspective.