Brief Summary

For several years now, Google has been using the attributes rel="nofollow", rel="sponsored", and rel="ugc" as hints for its algorithms. They help distinguish sponsored and user-generated links from natural ones, but they do not provide direct ranking boosts. In this article, we’ll break down how to safely label links for Google without losing link equity or risking penalties for artificial links.

Who should read this article:

• SEO specialists and link-building managers who develop link-building strategies for Google.
• Owners of websites, blogs, forums, and marketplaces with active user-generated content.
• Marketers and affiliate media buyers working with affiliate and advertising links.

Google Link Attributes: Nofollow, Sponsored, and UGC

A link can be supplemented with one of three attributes: nofollow, sponsored, or ugc. Each directive has its own meaning, while the basic option remains using a link without any attribute at all (the default).

When evaluating a site’s link profile and rankings, Google may, in certain cases known only to itself, treat these newer link attributes as hints. This means that under some circumstances, the search engine may ignore, for example, the rel="sponsored" attribute on a paid link and still take it into account when assessing the page’s content.

Since March 1, 2020, Google has treated the rel="nofollow" directive not as a strict ban, but as a hint. Even with this attribute, the bot may crawl the link and use its signals if it sees value in doing so for users.

Google also allows multiple attributes to be used on the same link at the same time. One directive does not exclude another.

For advertising and affiliate links, Google recommends using rel="nofollow" and rel="sponsored" — either separately or together. Using the rel="ugc" directive for paid links may lead to penalties for artificial linking.

The introduction of new attributes does not mean that webmasters are required to urgently update all old links. Google does not impose penalties for the absence of these newer directives, nor does it offer bonuses for using them, but the attributes do help clearly indicate which links are paid.

Site owners who previously used nofollow to limit Googlebot’s crawling should keep in mind that for several years now, this attribute has worked as a recommendation rather than a strict prohibition.

Next, we’ll take a closer look at what has changed with links and how this affects SEO in Google.

FAQ on topic

Do all links need to be urgently updated to the new attributes?

No, it’s enough to correctly label new advertising and affiliate links using rel="sponsored" and rel="nofollow", and to use rel="ugc" for user-generated content wherever you’re not confident about the quality of the links.

Do the nofollow, sponsored, and UGC attributes affect ranking growth in search?

By themselves, these attributes do not boost rankings, but they help avoid penalties for artificial links and make your link profile clearer for search algorithms.

What Happened to Nofollow Links

Let’s look at how the use of rel="nofollow" has changed with the introduction of new link attributes.

Google began supporting the rel="nofollow" attribute in 2005. At the time, it was a progressive step for protection against spam or low-quality sites, linking to which could harm not only visitors but also the linking website itself. In addition, nofollow had to be used for advertising links as well (sponsored or paid links). The absence of this directive on such links could lead to penalties from Google.

For a long time, the search engine’s idea worked well. However, portals such as Wikipedia and Forbes then began to appear and grow. These sites had weak control over user-generated content (UGC), so they feared penalties from the search engine because of low-quality links and started applying the nofollow attribute to all outgoing links.

All of this noticeably devalued the internet’s link graph in the eyes of the search engine. Many of the sites linked to by Wikipedia, for example, deserve attention and trust, so Google needed a different approach to evaluating nofollow links.

A solution was found with the introduction of new clarifying nofollow attributes: rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc". These algorithm-level hints allow the search engine to better understand the signals coming from a website and to separate commercial links from natural ones.

This change benefits publishers of high-quality content the most. Google’s flexibility in evaluating advertising and UGC links gives some of them a chance to rank higher in search results without fearing penalties for honestly labeled advertising traffic.

FAQ on topic

Is it still worth buying nofollow links for SEO?

Not as a primary source of link equity, no, but such links can still be useful for traffic, brand awareness, and diversifying the anchor list.

Can Google take nofollow links into account when ranking?

Yes, in some cases Google may use them as a signal if the link is placed on a high-quality resource and looks natural.

What should be done with large numbers of nofollow links from old campaigns?

It’s not necessary to relabel them. What matters is making sure the profile doesn’t look like a solid catalog of identical donor sites, and, if necessary, cleaning up obviously spammy placements.

Ranking and Nofollow Links

Until recently, it was believed that links with the nofollow directive affected SEO in the following way:

• they blocked content from crawling and indexing because Googlebot did not follow them;
• they had no impact on the ranking process in search results, which the search engine itself repeatedly confirmed.

For many years, some SEO specialists believed that Google was deliberately being a bit disingenuous on this point, since nofollow links were seen as a potential ranking factor in the SERP. After several years of working with the new attributes, it became clear that Google actually can take such links into account as one of the weak signals if they come from authoritative websites.

After introducing support for additional nofollow attributes, the search engine describes their impact on ranking as follows:

• links with such attributes still block content from mandatory crawling and indexing by Googlebot;
• all three directives (nofollow, sponsored, and ugc) are now officially treated as hints for Google. The search engine may ignore any of them and use the link equity of a link with such an attribute during page ranking.

Since March 1, 2020, Google has changed its approach to processing nofollow links:

• depending on the situation, the bot may follow nofollow links for crawling and indexing;
• in such cases, links with a single attribute or their combinations may directly influence website rankings in Google SERP.

At the same time, the search engine emphasizes that this does not happen in every situation. In most cases, ignoring nofollow links remains the default priority.

FAQ on topic

Can a website reach the top using only dofollow links?

A uniform backlink profile made up only of dofollow links looks suspicious. A healthy link profile contains a natural mix of link types, including nofollow links and brand mentions without anchor text.

Do the anchors of nofollow links matter to Google?

There is no direct confirmation of this, but to stay on the safe side, it is better not to overuse commercial anchors even in nofollow links and to use them to diversify the anchor list.

Do Webmasters Need to Fix Something

For most websites, there is no need to massively rework all old links and add new directives to them.

At the same time, some cases do allow for the use of new attributes on old links:

• If the site owner wants Google to better understand the types of links they are referring to. The Wikipedia case is illustrative here, since the sites the online encyclopedia links to are often trusted primary sources.
• Changes may be justified for SEO specialists who previously used the rel="nofollow" directive to conserve crawl budget and now want to align their link-handling policy with current recommendations.

The final decision remains with the webmaster. It is important to remember that adding new directives does not guarantee better search visibility, just as refusing to use them does not lead to automatic Google penalties, as long as you are not violating the link spam policy.

FAQ on topic

Do you need to go back to old guest posts and add rel="sponsored"?

If the link is clearly commercial and appears on a prominent resource, it makes sense to bring it in line with Google’s current requirements at the first opportunity. Mass edits across all archives are not required.

Is it worth changing user links in comments if they are already marked with nofollow?

Additionally marking them with rel="ugc" is useful, but not critical. What matters more is moderation and preventing obvious spam.

Does it make sense to reconsider the strategy of closing internal links with nofollow?

Yes. For managing indexing and crawling, it is better to use robots.txt, meta tags, and server settings rather than relying only on nofollow.

How to Work with Attributes

Let’s look at which attribute should be used in which cases, and what can happen if you ignore the new rules.

Which attribute should you choose for an outbound link?

If you want to specify a link, Google’s recommendations are as follows:

• No value. For regular links, the rel attribute is not required. In this case, you allow Google to follow the outbound link without restrictions. You do this at your own risk.
• rel="nofollow". Use nofollow when none of the other values fit. It is applied when you do not want Google to associate your site with the resource the link points to. For internal links, it is better to set restrictions in robots.txt.
• rel="sponsored". Use this directive to describe advertising links (sponsored, paid) and similar links.
• rel="ugc". This attribute is needed to mark links in user-generated content — forum comments, blog posts, and so on. If you want to emphasize a user’s special authority on your site’s pages (you trust them completely), there is no need to add this directive to their link.

Google allows these attributes to be combined for a single link, for example, rel="nofollow sponsored".

Will Google penalize you for the absence of nofollow directives on paid links?

There is such a possibility. The search engine recommends marking advertising links with rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow". The rel="ugc" directive is not acceptable in this case.

If a visitor to your site places a sponsored link in their comment or post, the safest option is to close such links with the combination rel="nofollow ugc" and, if necessary, additionally use rel="sponsored" if it is clearly an advertisement.

Based on this, many SEO specialists mark questionable user links with rel="nofollow" or rel="nofollow ugc".

Do nofollow attributes help control crawling and indexing?

The nofollow directive has always been a weak tool when it comes to preventing indexing. If you want to stop Google from indexing pages, use other, more effective methods based on the noindex directive and proper server response header configuration.

When it comes to crawling, the situation is a bit different. In the past, many owners of large portals used nofollow to save crawl budget, as well as to limit Googlebot from crawling less important internal pages of a site.

Google’s statements still allow such actions now, but for several years nofollow directives have been able to be ignored — in some cases, the bot will crawl despite the restriction specified by the attribute. SEO experts need to look for other effective ways to block certain sections of a site from being crawled.

FAQ on topic

How often should you audit your backlink profile?

For commercial projects in competitive niches, it makes sense to review links at least once a quarter; for informational sites, once every six months is usually enough.

Can paid links and crowd marketing be combined within one project?

Yes, if you control the quality of the platforms, label advertising links properly, and do not try to artificially inflate link equity.

Is it worth using redirects and intermediary pages instead of explicit sponsored links?

Mass hiding of commercial links through redirects looks suspicious. It is easier to label such links honestly and monitor the quality of donor sites.

Conclusion: Is It Worth Adding Nofollow Directives?

Attributes are not strictly mandatory, so the final decision on implementation is always up to the webmaster. Over the past few years, it has become clear that they are useful primarily as a transparency tool: they help separate advertising and user-generated links from natural ones and reduce the risk of penalties for link spam.

In most cases, adding the mentioned link attributes does not harm a site. Many SEO blogs and large platforms use rel="ugc" or rel="nofollow ugc" for links in user comments, and rel="sponsored" for explicit advertising.