[swatit]

In order to understand the difference between do follow vs no follow links, we need to look at how the search engines work. Search engines, like Google, are always looking for clues on which pages are the best to feature at the top of their search result pages (SERPs). One of the things that they look at is the number of links from other sites that “point” to that page.
A no follow link is a link that doesn’t “point” to another site (no signposts). I think this is where people get confused, as people can still click onto a no follow link and get sent to another site, but in the eyes of the search engines they don’t “point” to anything.