Should you use nofollow on internal links to legal pages?

Why does the question of nofollow on internal links come up regularly?

Many SEOs still believe that sculpting internal PageRank with nofollow can concentrate SEO "juice" on strategic pages. This reflex comes from a time when Google explicitly recommended this practice to optimize crawl budget.

However, in 2009, Google changed the rules: the PageRank lost by a nofollow link is no longer redistributed to other links on the page; it is simply evaporated. Since then, internal nofollow has almost no technical significance, but the myth persists in the community.

What does John Mueller really say about this specific case?

Mueller acknowledges that applying nofollow to links to legal or transparency pages is technically possible. There's no fatal error, no penalty. But he immediately specifies that the impact will likely be zero.

The subtext is clear: you are wasting your time. These pages have low traffic, marginal SEO value, and do not cannibalize your priority pages. Marking them as nofollow adds a layer of technical complexity without documented benefit.

Which pages are included in these "standard sections"?

Mueller talks about mandatory or secondary pages: legal mentions, general terms, privacy policy, credits, standard contact pages. These pages exist for legal or compliance reasons, not to rank.

He does NOT mention category pages, secondary product sheets, or archives. For the latter, the debate can still make sense if your crawl budget is limited or if you want to channel PageRank differently.

• Evaporation of PageRank: internal nofollow has been losing juice without redirecting it elsewhere since 2009
• Complexity vs. Benefit: managing selective nofollow requires ongoing maintenance for a hypothetical gain
• Crawl Budget: on sites with fewer than 10,000 pages, nofollow will not noticeably improve crawling
• Legal Pages: they do not create internal competition and do not dilute PageRank of strategic pages
• Google clearly states: keep these links as dofollow by default, it’s simpler and just as effective

Is this statement consistent with real-world observations?

Yes, and it's one of the few topics where Google and practitioners agree. Tests removing or applying nofollow on links to legal mentions never show measurable impact on rankings or crawling.

PageRank simulation tools (OnCrawl, Botify) confirm that these pages receive breadcrumbs of juice and barely pass it on. Applying nofollow does not improve distribution to strategic pages.

In what cases does internal nofollow still make sense?

Let's be honest: internal nofollow still has a few legitimate use cases, but they are rare and specific. On sites with millions of automatically generated pages (filter facets, infinite pagination, time archives), blocking certain links can help Googlebot prioritize.

On an e-commerce site with 50,000 filter combinations, nofollow on sorting or filtering links can prevent crawl dilution. But be careful: robots.txt or meta robots tags are often more effective than scattered nofollow.

What nuances should be added to this advice?

Mueller says "it's better to leave these links as normal," but he doesn’t say that nofollow is useless in absolute terms. Nuance matters. On a site with a tight crawl budget (news, expired classifieds, large forums), nofollow can still be used to guide Googlebot.

The problem is that most sites do NOT have this issue. If you have fewer than 10,000 pages and Google crawls your site daily without trouble, internal nofollow will change nothing. [To check]: in server logs, confirm if Google is actually crawling your legal pages often. If so, nofollow won't solve anything.

What should you do concretely on an existing site?

If you have already applied nofollow to your internal links to legal pages, don't change a thing. It’s not urgent, and removing these nofollow links will not bring visible gains. Google handles these cases very well.

If you are building a new site or redesigning the existing one, keep all internal links as dofollow by default. It’s simpler to maintain, cleaner technically, and complies with Google's official recommendations.

What mistakes should be absolutely avoided?

Do not confuse internal nofollow with indexation. Nofollow does not prevent Google from indexing a page if it receives external links or is in the XML sitemap. To exclude a page from indexing, use a meta robots tag "noindex".

Also, avoid nofollow on internal links to pages that convert or generate SEO traffic. Some sites apply nofollow to their contact pages or forms, thinking they are not priority. The result: these pages lose PageRank and rank worse, while they could capture local or commercial queries.

How to check that your site is configured correctly?

Run a crawl with Screaming Frog or Botify and filter the links with the rel="nofollow" attribute. If you see hundreds of internal nofollow links to legal pages, ask yourself if this complexity is really necessary.

Check your server logs to see how many times Googlebot visits your legal mentions or general terms. If it’s less than 5 times a month on a site with 1,000 pages, nofollow won’t make a difference. Google already crawls these pages infrequently because they have few incoming links and little freshness.

• Crawl your site to identify current internal nofollow links
• Analyze your server logs to see if Google excessively crawls your legal pages
• Remove internal nofollow if your site has fewer than 10,000 indexed pages
• Keep nofollow only on filter facets or infinite paginations if necessary
• Never apply nofollow on internal links to strategic or transactional pages
• Prefer robots.txt or meta robots "noindex" to completely exclude entire sections