PageRank Overrides Nofollow and Sponsored Directives to Complete Local Link Graphs

Google actively ignores rel="nofollow", sponsored, and ugc attributes when the PageRank model requires those connections to map a local link graph, notes Michael Martinez.

The system processes site-owner declarations as optional hints rather than strict blocking rules.

If the algorithm determines a specific outbound link is a necessary structural component of the local network, it overrides the HTML directive.

This mechanism forces crawlers to follow and count links embedded in restricted zones, such as user comment sections, passing equity despite deliberate isolation attempts.