How to apply NOFOLLOW to specific items

Hi Guys,

Merry Christmas! :smiley:

I know this topic has been touched on for similar requests, but I couldn’t see any examples that related fully to my case.

I’ve recently completed an on-page audit and a number of links, both internal and external, have been flagged as having the FOLLOW attribute. I’d like to force a number of these to NOFOLLOW. Most of the links are menu items or social icons in either the header or footer areas - see attached.

Help in doing this would be very much appreciated, ticking off items like this will be a New Years resolution :smiley: Would be great to get ahead.

Thanks in advance!
Cheers, A

site at: www.mbjarvie.ltd
Header screenshot
Footer screenshot

Hey Adam,

To enable nofollow for WordPress menu items, you can follow this guide: https://www.wpbeginner.com/wp-tutorials/how-to-add-nofollow-links-in-wordpress-navigation-menus/

For the social icons, you will need to override the x_social_global function which can be found in social.php located at \framework\functions. To do that, you will need to setup a child theme first. The instruction to setup a child theme can be found at https://theme.co/apex/forum/t/setup-how-to-setup-child-themes/57

Next, under this PHP comment in your child theme’s functions.php.

// Additional Functions
// =============================================================================

Insert this code which is a modified x_social_global function. I’ve added rel="nofollow" to the social links.

function x_social_global() {

  $facebook    = x_get_option( 'x_social_facebook' );
  $twitter     = x_get_option( 'x_social_twitter' );
  $google_plus = x_get_option( 'x_social_googleplus' );
  $linkedin    = x_get_option( 'x_social_linkedin' );
  $xing        = x_get_option( 'x_social_xing' );
  $foursquare  = x_get_option( 'x_social_foursquare' );
  $youtube     = x_get_option( 'x_social_youtube' );
  $vimeo       = x_get_option( 'x_social_vimeo' );
  $instagram   = x_get_option( 'x_social_instagram' );
  $pinterest   = x_get_option( 'x_social_pinterest' );
  $dribbble    = x_get_option( 'x_social_dribbble' );
  $flickr      = x_get_option( 'x_social_flickr' );
  $github      = x_get_option( 'x_social_github' );
  $behance     = x_get_option( 'x_social_behance' );
  $tumblr      = x_get_option( 'x_social_tumblr' );
  $whatsapp    = x_get_option( 'x_social_whatsapp' );
  $soundcloud  = x_get_option( 'x_social_soundcloud' );
  $rss         = x_get_option( 'x_social_rss' );

  $output = '<div class="x-social-global">';

    if ( $facebook )    : $output .= '<a href="' . $facebook    . '" class="facebook" title="Facebook" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-facebook-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf082;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $twitter )     : $output .= '<a href="' . $twitter     . '" class="twitter" title="Twitter" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-twitter-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf081;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $google_plus ) : $output .= '<a href="' . $google_plus . '" class="google-plus" title="Google+" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-google-plus-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf0d4;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $linkedin )    : $output .= '<a href="' . $linkedin    . '" class="linkedin" title="LinkedIn" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-linkedin-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf08c;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $xing )        : $output .= '<a href="' . $xing        . '" class="xing" title="XING" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-xing-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf169;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $foursquare )  : $output .= '<a href="' . $foursquare  . '" class="foursquare" title="Foursquare" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-foursquare" data-x-icon-b="&#xf180;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $youtube )     : $output .= '<a href="' . $youtube     . '" class="youtube" title="YouTube" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-youtube-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf431;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $vimeo )       : $output .= '<a href="' . $vimeo       . '" class="vimeo" title="Vimeo" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-vimeo-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf194;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $instagram )   : $output .= '<a href="' . $instagram   . '" class="instagram" title="Instagram" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-instagram" data-x-icon-b="&#xf16d;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $pinterest )   : $output .= '<a href="' . $pinterest   . '" class="pinterest" title="Pinterest" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-pinterest-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf0d3;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $dribbble )    : $output .= '<a href="' . $dribbble    . '" class="dribbble" title="Dribbble" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-dribbble" data-x-icon-b="&#xf17d;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $flickr )      : $output .= '<a href="' . $flickr      . '" class="flickr" title="Flickr" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-flickr" data-x-icon-b="&#xf16e;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $github )      : $output .= '<a href="' . $github      . '" class="github" title="GitHub" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-github-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf092;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $behance )     : $output .= '<a href="' . $behance     . '" class="behance" title="Behance" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-behance-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf1b5;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $tumblr )      : $output .= '<a href="' . $tumblr      . '" class="tumblr" title="Tumblr" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-tumblr-square" data-x-icon-b="&#xf174;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $whatsapp )    : $output .= '<a href="' . $whatsapp    . '" class="whatsapp" title="Whatsapp" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-whatsapp" data-x-icon-b="&#xf232;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $soundcloud )  : $output .= '<a href="' . $soundcloud  . '" class="soundcloud" title="SoundCloud" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-soundcloud" data-x-icon-b="&#xf1be;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;
    if ( $rss )         : $output .= '<a href="' . $rss         . '" class="rss" title="RSS" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><i class="x-icon-rss-square" data-x-icon-s="&#xf143;" aria-hidden="true"></i></a>'; endif;

  $output .= '</div>';

  echo $output;

}

Hope that helps.

Wonderful, thanks for the reply. I’ll work at implementing that ASAP.
One question before I start: I note the nofollow guide for menu links applies to external links - I would like to apply this to some internal menu links (I don’t want to give link juice to certain internal pages that have lower ranking priority). Same process?

Hi Adam,

Yes, you could do that and please check the URL provided by Christian

It shouldn’t be limited to external link only, you can apply the same on any menu item.

Thanks!

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