A guide to Google’s new link attributes – rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc"

This week, Google announced that it is now rolling out two completely new link attributes designed to complement the already established nofollow attribute.

In addition to rel=”nofollow”, Google will now take the following into account:

• rel=”sponsored” (For sponsored links through advertising, sponsored content, and similar)
• rel=”ugc” (User-generated content such as forum posts and links in comment sections)

In this article, we therefore aim to clarify these concepts so that you, as a reader, can get a clear understanding of what the new terms mean and how they should be used.

Links give authority to your site

To clarify the concepts, it is important to first understand the significance of a link.

For a search engine to determine whether a site has authority within its field, links are of great importance.

One could say that a site that receives many links from relevant sites within a similar field gains greater authority than a site whose links come from non-relevant sites.

If, for example, you write about gardening and most of your links come from sites about cars, Google will interpret this as your site not being an authoritative site on gardening. The better your links are, the better your chances of ranking higher (provided that your content is better than your competitors’ and taking into account over 200 other factors).

Nofollow or dofollow – no longer as black and white

Historically, Google has viewed links as either nofollow or not. With the new complementary attributes, the idea is that they should function as “hints”, or “signals” if you will, to Google on how different types of links should be treated depending on their status. That is, whether they are paid links, user-generated, and so on.

Previously, Google instructed its crawlers to ignore nofollow links and not follow them. Nofollow links therefore did not transfer link equity that would indicate to Google that the linked site should receive the same endorsement as through a “regular” link.

Since a nofollow link caused search engines to ignore the link in question, their crawlers (in theory) also did not follow it to see what was on the other side of the link. It was thus an instruction not to proceed and to remain on the page they were on. This will now change, as all three attributes will be treated as “hints” to Google regarding which links should be treated as ranking signals.

This means that Google will no longer ignore links that are nofollow, but will also take these into account when evaluating a site’s links.

Google itself states that the reason for not simply ignoring these links, as it previously did with nofollow, is that all links provide valuable information that can be used to understand content as well as unnatural link building.

“Links contain valuable information that can help us improve search, such as how the words within links describe content they point at. Looking at all the links we encounter can also help us better understand unnatural linking patterns. By shifting to a hint model, we no longer lose this important information, while still allowing site owners to indicate that some links shouldn’t be given the weight of a first-party endorsement.” (Danny Sullivan and Gary Illyes)

When should you use the different link attributes?

• rel=”sponsored”: As mentioned earlier, this attribute should be used for all paid links. This also includes sponsored content or cases where the site owner has received some form of compensation for linking to another site.
• rel=”ugc”: In English, UGC stands for “User Generated Content”. This includes comments, forum posts, and other content created by users.
• rel=”nofollow”: As mentioned above, the rel=”nofollow” attribute has been used to show Google that you do not vouch for the site you are linking to or do not wish to transfer link equity as an endorsement of its content. This is still the case, and you should therefore continue to apply nofollow to links that point to sites you do not trust or do not consider worthy of your endorsement.

How can you see which attribute different links have?

Now that you have come this far in the text, you may also want to know how to identify which attribute a link has. To see which links are, for example, nofollow, you can, if you are using the Chrome browser, either right-click the link in question and choose “Inspect”, or go into the source code and locate the link there. If the link in question is nofollow, this tag will be present in the link’s HTML code, rel=”nofollow”. The same applies if it says, for example, rel=”sponsored” or rel=”ugc”. If nothing else is stated in connection with the link, it is still a dofollow link and therefore transfers link equity as usual.

What site owners should consider with Google’s new directives

Google has been clear that there is no need to go back and change existing nofollow links. For the two new attributes, you can already start using them today, and Google will interpret these as so-called “hints” to help determine a site’s authority. Nofollow links, however, will be treated as they have been until March 2020; after that, they too will be treated as “hints” in Google’s eyes.

When it comes to sponsored posts, meaning links that involve some form of monetary compensation, Google advises site owners to henceforth apply the new link attribute rel=”sponsored” to these links. However, existing nofollow links to previously sponsored content can remain as they are.

If desired, it is also possible to combine nofollow with the new attributes, for example rel=”nofollow ugc”, to remain compatible with services that do not support Google’s new attributes.

Should you care about nofollow links and the new attributes?

The short answer to this question is: Yes, you should care. Regardless of whether a link transfers link equity or not, it can still generate traffic. A link from a forum comment section (rel=”ugc”) can still generate a click and thus bring another visitor to your site.

There are also some within the SEO industry who claim that nofollow links, even previously, may have had a direct impact on ranking positions, but we will leave that question unanswered in this article.