Should you really nofollow login pages and terms and conditions?

Why does Google distinguish between crawling and PageRank flow?

Google's statement relies on a fundamental distinction: crawling and PageRank transfer are two independent mechanisms. A nofollow link does not prevent Googlebot from following the URL and discovering the target page; it just blocks the transfer of SEO juice.

This nuance explains why Google claims that nofollow on a login page is not detrimental. The bot can still access this URL through other paths (XML sitemap, external links, direct navigation). Thus, nofollow does not create a blind spot in your architecture.

Which pages are affected by this recommendation?

Google specifically targets functional pages without intrinsic SEO value: login forms, terms and conditions, legal notices, cookie policy, post-purchase confirmation pages. These URLs consume crawl budget without bringing in organic traffic.

The issue is that this categorization remains subjective. A “My Account” page may contain reassuring elements useful for conversion, even if it is not intended to rank. The boundary between “secondary” and “strategic” depends on your model.

What does “letting PageRank flow” mean in this context?

By removing the nofollow, you allow a natural redistribution of SEO juice to pages that generate no organic ROI. On a site with 10,000 URLs, every internal link counts. Diluting PageRank across 50 legal pages weakens the strategic pages.

Google never specifies the threshold at which this dilution becomes problematic. The lack of quantification makes the recommendation inapplicable as it stands. A site with 100 pages can afford this flow; a marketplace with 500,000 URLs cannot.

• Nofollow blocks the transfer of PageRank, not Googlebot's crawling
• Secondary pages = login, terms and conditions, legal notices, confirmations
• Letting juice flow dilutes the PageRank of strategic pages
• Google provides no numerical threshold to arbitrate this decision
• The recommendation completely ignores the issue of crawl budget

Is Google’s position consistent with real-world observations?

No, and this is where the official discourse diverges from practice. The majority of high-performing SEO sites use robots.txt or noindex on their secondary pages, not nofollow on internal links. Why? Because nofollow only addresses half the problem.

If you nofollow a link to /login but leave the page indexable, Google can still index it through other paths. Result: you block PageRank but not the pollution of the index. This is the worst of both worlds. Sites that really rank well completely block indexing (noindex or disallow) rather than juggle with nofollow.

What nuances does Google intentionally omit?

This statement completely ignores the impact on crawl budget. Allowing Googlebot to freely explore 200 terms and conditions pages translated into 15 languages takes away resources for crawling your freshly updated product sheets. [To verify]: Google has never published data quantifying this loss of efficiency.

Another blind spot: the deliberate de-optimization of the index. An indexed /my-account page with 0 backlinks and 0 user engagement sends negative quality signals. Google knows this but never admits it publicly. Audits, however, show that cleaning up these pages often improves the ranking of strategic URLs.

In what cases is this recommendation still relevant?

For very small sites (fewer than 100 pages) with a simple internal structure, letting PageRank flow costs almost nothing. If your WordPress blog has 30 articles and 5 legal pages, the nofollow is indeed superfluous.

But as soon as you manage an e-commerce site, a comparison site, a directory, or media with thousands of URLs, the logic reverses. Every PageRank point counts. Sites that dominate their SERPs apply a brutal rule: if a page does not generate organic traffic, it gets removed from the index. Period.

What actions should you take on these secondary pages?

Forget nofollow on internal links; block indexing directly with noindex or robots.txt. A noindex in the meta tag keeps the page crawlable (useful for Googlebot following user paths) while removing it from the index. It’s cleaner and more effective.

For login pages, always add a meta robots noindex,nofollow tag in the <head>. For terms and conditions and legal notices, ensure they do not accumulate unwanted backlinks (sometimes directories scrape them). If they do, immediate noindex.

How do you identify pages that truly deserve blocking?

Export your indexed URLs via Google Search Console, cross-reference them with your Analytics data. Any page with 0 organic clicks over 12 months and 0 impressions is a candidate for noindex. Exceptions: transactional pages (cart, checkout) which are already blocked by default.

Scan your internal linking with Screaming Frog or Oncrawl. Identify pages that receive more than 10 internal links without generating SEO value. These links dilute your PageRank unnecessarily. You can either set them to nofollow (a weak solution) or restructure your navigation to isolate them in a minimalist footer.

What mistakes should you avoid during this optimization?

Never block a page in robots.txt AND with noindex simultaneously. Robots.txt prevents Googlebot from seeing the noindex tag, resulting in the page remaining indexed with a “Description not available” snippet. It’s worse than doing nothing.

Second pitfall: reflexively nofollow all your footer links. Some footer links (Sitemap, Contact, About) have real SEO value. Handle each link on a case-by-case basis, not with a bulldozer. A generic footer with 40 nofollowed links looks like an attempt to manipulate; Google is not fooled.

• Apply noindex,nofollow in the meta tag on all login pages and user forms
• Check in Search Console that terms and conditions, legal notices, cookie policies generate no organic clicks over 12 months
• Block in robots.txt the /account/, /user/, /member/ directories if you manage a high-volume site
• Audit your internal linking to identify pages receiving more than 10 links without SEO value
• Never combine robots.txt + noindex on the same URL (the bot will never see the tag)
• Keep pages like Contact, About, Sitemap indexed if they generate organic impressions