No, a search bot (like Googlebot) does not follow links marked with certain values in the rel attribute. Here's a breakdown of how search engines treat links with rel attributes:

Key rel Values That Affect Crawling and SEO: rel="nofollow":

Tells the search engine not to follow the link. This is often used to prevent passing SEO "link juice" to untrusted or user-generated content. rel="sponsored":

Indicates the link is a paid or affiliate link. Search engines don't pass SEO authority, and they may not follow it. rel="ugc" (User-Generated Content):

Used for links in forums, comments, and other user-generated content. It signals that the link is external but might not be as trustworthy. rel="canonical":

Points to the preferred version of a page (helps with duplicate content). The search engine doesn't follow it like a normal link but treats it as an instruction. What About Links Without rel Attributes? If a link uses just:

html Copy code Link Search engines will typically follow this link unless blocked by other mechanisms (like robots.txt or meta tags). However, if rel="nofollow" or a similar value is present, the search engine respects that instruction.

So if your tag looks like this:

html Copy code Link The search bot will not follow the link. If there's no restrictive real value, it will generally follow the link.

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