rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc"

TL;DR — rel="sponsored" is for paid links (ads, affiliate links, sponsorships). rel="ugc" is for user-generated links (blog comments, forum posts). Google added both in 2019 to let you describe what kind of link something is. You can combine values with nofollow, and you do not have to change the nofollow links you already have. The one rule you can’t skip: paid links still need to be flagged.

Evidence for this claim Google recommends sponsored for paid placements and ugc for links in user-generated content such as comments and forum posts. Scope: Google link-qualification guidance. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Qualify outbound links Evidence for this claim Google's spam policies require paid links intended for ranking purposes to be qualified with sponsored or nofollow. Scope: Google Search link-spam policy; separate consumer-disclosure laws may also apply. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Essentials: Link spam

What these two attributes are

When you link out to another site, you can add a small label to the link that tells search engines what kind of link it is. Two of those labels are:

• rel="sponsored" — use it on links that are paid: advertisements, sponsorships, and affiliate links (including your Amazon links).
• rel="ugc" — use it on links inside user-generated content: blog comments, forum posts, and anything other people post on your site.

Here’s what each looks like in HTML:

<a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored">a paid / affiliate link</a>
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc">a link inside a blog comment</a>

Google introduced both of these on September 10, 2019. Before that, the standard way to flag this kind of link was the older nofollowrel=\"nofollow\" is a value of the HTML link rel attribute that tells search engines you don't vouch for a linked page and don't want to pass ranking signals to it. Since 2019–2020 Google treats it as a hint, not a directive — and it does not reliably block crawling or indexing. attribute — and nofollowrel=\"nofollow\" is a value of the HTML link rel attribute that tells search engines you don't vouch for a linked page and don't want to pass ranking signals to it. Since 2019–2020 Google treats it as a hint, not a directive — and it does not reliably block crawling or indexing. still works fine. These two just let you be more specific about why a link shouldn’t count as your endorsement.

Which one do I use?

A quick rule of thumb:

• It’s an ad, a sponsorship, or an affiliate link → rel="sponsored".
• It’s a link someone else posted (a comment, a forum reply) → rel="ugc".
• It’s neither, and you just don’t want to vouch for it → rel="nofollow".

You don’t have to memorize this perfectly. As you’ll see in the Advanced version, over-labeling a link is basically harmless — the only real mistake is not labeling a genuine paid link.

The two things people get wrong

You do NOT have to rip out your old nofollows. This is the biggest myth. Google was explicit that there’s no need to change any nofollow links you already have. If your comment plugin or affiliate setup adds nofollow, that’s still fine. Switch to sponsored/ugc only if and when it’s convenient.

These don’t “pass” any extra ranking power. sponsored and ugc are not softer or stronger versions of nofollow. Like nofollow, they generally aren’t counted for ranking — they’re hints that tell Google how to treat the link.

There’s one thing you genuinely must do, though: flag your paid links. If you take money (or a free product) in exchange for a link and you let it pass ranking credit, that’s against Google’s rules and can get your site penalized. Tagging it sponsored (or nofollow) keeps you compliant.

Want the full reference — combining values, the link-spam risk, the FTC angle, how this interacts with crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor., and real adoption numbers? Switch to the Advanced tab.

TL;DR — sponsored = paid/affiliate/ad links; ugc = user-generated links (comments, forum posts). Google introduced both on Sept 10, 2019, alongside making nofollow a hint. All three are hints, not strict directives — generally not followed or counted for ranking, but Google keeps the right to use the information. You can combine values (rel="sponsored nofollow", rel="ugc nofollow", rel="ugc sponsored"), and you do not have to migrate existing nofollowsrel=\"nofollow\" is a value of the HTML link rel attribute that tells search engines you don't vouch for a linked page and don't want to pass ranking signals to it. Since 2019–2020 Google treats it as a hint, not a directive — and it does not reliably block crawling or indexing. — switch “if or when it is convenient.” You do still have to flag paid links: undisclosed paid links that pass signals are link spam and can trigger a manual action. rel="sponsored" is the search-engine signal, not an FTC disclosure — do both. Adoption is tiny: in my 2020 study of the top 110k sites, ~0.44% of referring domains used ugc and ~0.01% used sponsored.

Evidence for this claim Google recommends sponsored for paid placements and ugc for links in user-generated content such as comments and forum posts. Scope: Google link-qualification guidance. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Central: Qualify outbound links Evidence for this claim Google's spam policies require paid links intended for ranking purposes to be qualified with sponsored or nofollow. Scope: Google Search link-spam policy; separate consumer-disclosure laws may also apply. Confidence: high · Verified: 2026-07-14 Google Search Essentials: Link spam

What they are, and where they came from

On September 10, 2019, Google introduced two new link-relationship attribute values and, at the same time, changed how the existing nofollow works. Danny Sullivan and Gary Illyes announced both:

• rel="sponsored" — “Use the sponsored attribute to identify links on your site that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements.” Google’s docs put it plainly too: mark links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links) with the sponsored value. That covers display ads, paid placements, advertorials, and affiliate links.
• rel="ugc" — “UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc attribute value is recommended for links within user generated content, such as comments and forum posts.”

The third member of the family, nofollowrel=\"nofollow\" is a value of the HTML link rel attribute that tells search engines you don't vouch for a linked page and don't want to pass ranking signals to it. Since 2019–2020 Google treats it as a hint, not a directive — and it does not reliably block crawling or indexing., is the sibling topic, not the subject here — think of it as the catch-all. Google’s guidance: use the nofollow value when the other values don’t apply and you’d rather Google not associate your site with, or crawl, the linked page from your site.

They’re hints, not directives

This is the load-bearing concept. All three link attributes — sponsored, ugc, and nofollow — are “treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search.” Google uses these hints “along with other signals” to decide how to handle a link.

In practice that means the linked page is generally not followed and the link isn’t counted for ranking — the same effect nofollow had before. But “hint” is doing real work: Google moved away from the old “completely ignore” model precisely so it could keep the information. As the announcement put it, “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.” And: “In most cases, the move to a hint model won’t change the nature of how we treat such links.”

So don’t read sponsored/ugc as a guarantee — they’re a signal Google may use, not a switch you flip. This is the same hint logic that governs how the robots meta tagThe robots meta tag is an HTML element in a page's head — <meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex\"> — that tells search engines how to index and serve that page. It's crawl-then-obey: a page blocked in robots.txt is never fetched, so the tag is never seen.’s nofollow directive and link-level nofollow behave, and it’s why none of these reliably block crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor. (more on that below).

You don’t have to change your existing nofollows

If you take one operational thing from this page, take this: there is no migration to do. Google could not have been clearer — “There’s absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.” For paid links specifically, “You don’t need to change any existing markup… However, we recommend switching over to rel="sponsored" if or when it is convenient.”

nofollow is still an acceptable way to flag paid links; sponsored is simply preferred. For the purpose of staying clear of a link-scheme action, Google treats sponsored and nofollow the same. So nothing breaks if your CMSA content management system (CMS) is software that lets users create, manage, and publish digital content — like blog posts and pages — without writing raw code. WordPress, Drupal, and Joomla are the most common open-source CMS platforms., plugin, or template still emits nofollow everywhere.

Combining values

You can put more than one rel value on a single link, space- or comma-separated. Google: “You may specify multiple rel values as a space- or comma-separated list.” The valid, useful combinations:

<!-- a paid link, also flagged the old way for older tools -->
<a href="https://example.com" rel="sponsored nofollow">…</a>

<!-- a comment link, also flagged nofollow for backwards compatibility -->
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc nofollow">…</a>
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc,nofollow">…</a>

<!-- a sponsored link that arrived via user-generated content -->
<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc sponsored">…</a>

That last one is straight from Google: “rel="ugc sponsored" is a perfectly valid attribute which hints that the link came from user-generated content and is sponsored.” The point of pairing with nofollow — rel="nofollow ugc" — is backwards compatibility: it lets services that don’t yet understand the newer attributes still see the nofollow.

Which attribute should you use? (decision guide)

• Affiliate / Amazon links → sponsored. These are paid placements; it’s the recommended value.
• Display ads, paid placements, advertorials → sponsored (or nofollow — both keep you compliant).
• Blog comments / forum posts → ugc. If you want to recognize and reward trustworthy contributors, you might remove the attribute from links posted by members who have consistently made high-quality contributions over time — Google explicitly allows this.
• Guest posts → flag any paid ones as sponsored; for genuinely earned, high-quality contributions you trust, you can choose to drop the attribute.
• Internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them. → almost never. I’m a technical SEOTechnical SEO is the practice of making a site easy for search engines to crawl, render, index, and (now) be eligible for AI answers. It's the foundation that lets your content and links rank — not a ranking trick of its own., and I can’t think of a single case where I’d use nofollow on my internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them.. When I see sponsored on an internal link it’s usually user error — though some sites add it automatically for guest posts or advertorials.

There’s no real downside to being a little over-cautious. As Google put it, “There’s no wrong attribute except in the case of sponsored links. If you flag a UGC link or a non-ad link as sponsored, we’ll see that hint but the impact — if any at all — would be at most that we might not count the link as a credit for another page.” Translation: over-tagging is harmless; under-tagging a real ad is the only real risk.

Paid links, link spam, and manual actions

Here’s the obligation you can’t opt out of. Buying or selling links that pass ranking signals — “Exchanging money for links… Sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link” — is link spam under Google’s policies, as is advertorial or native advertising where payment buys links that pass ranking credit.

Google enforces this in two distinct ways, and they’re not interchangeable. Its spam-policies page says: “We detect policy-violating practices both through automated systems and, as needed, human review that can result in a manual action.” Automated systems can simply discount the links or let a site “rank lower in results or not appear in results at all” — that’s separate from a manual action, the human-reviewed escalation people usually mean by “penalty.” Google’s own wording doesn’t say which path is more common; the point is that “undisclosed paid link → manual action” isn’t the only, or even the guaranteed, consequence. Either way, qualifying the link correctly is what keeps you clear of both.

The resolution is exactly the attribute this article is about. Google: “Google does understand that buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes. It’s not a violation of our policies to have such links as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value to the <a> tag.” So paid links are fine — you just have to qualify them. (Note Google names nofollow and sponsored for the paid case; ugc is for user-generated content, not the paid-link case.)

The FTC angle: a separate obligation

This trips people up, so I’ll be explicit: rel="sponsored" is not an FTC disclosure. It’s the machine-readable signal that tells search engines a link is paid. US law (the FTC’s endorsement rules) separately requires a visible disclosure to readers when you have a material connection — affiliate links, sponsored posts, free products. They’re complementary, not substitutes. Do both: qualify the link with sponsored and tell your readers in plain language.

How this interacts with crawling and indexing

A common misconception is that tagging a link as sponsored or ugc removes the target from Google’s indexStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed. or blocks it from being crawled. It doesn’t. From Google’s docs: “Links marked with these rel attributes will generally not be followed. Remember that the linked pages may be foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. through other means, such as sitemapsA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. or links from other sites, and thus they may still be crawled.”

So qualifying a link is not a crawl block. If you actually want to stop a URL of your own from being crawled, that’s robots.txt; to keep a page out of the index, that’s noindex. There’s also a timing nuance worth keeping straight: for ranking, the hint model was immediate on Sept 10, 2019; for crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor. and indexingStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed., nofollow became a hint as of March 1, 2020 — don’t conflate the two dates. This is exactly why these attributes are a cross-reference point from the crawling material: they’re hints that shape crawling and ranking, not strict directives that wall a page off.

One more limitation: these rel values only work in crawlable <a> elements. Only nofollow also exists as a robots meta tag — sponsored and ugc do not.

Does Bing support these?

Yes. Bing added support for rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" (on top of its long-standing nofollow support) in 2020. Bing’s guideline asks you to make a reasonable effort to ensure paid or advertisement links use nofollow, sponsored, or ugc so they aren’t followed and don’t impact rankings. And like Google, Bing treats them as hints — a Bing spokesperson described them as “not as strong of a signal,” and Bing has historically said it may still follow such links if it deems necessary.

How many sites actually use them?

Almost none, last time I measured. In May 2020 I studied the top 110k sites by Ahrefs Rank (see the full research) — “In fact, we started collecting data and added filters to the tool within two days of the official announcement.” The headline: “Only 0.44% of referring domains to the top 110k sites use rel="ugc", and it’s even lower with rel="sponsored" seen on only 0.01% of referring domains.” At the backlink level it’s 0.016% for ugc and 0.008% for sponsored. For comparison, 10.6% of all backlinks to those sites are nofollow.

Why so low? Because the new attributes are optional and there’s no forced adoption — “Most sites are just using nofollow instead.” What movement there is tracks platforms: “WordPress added UGC support in version 5.3, and we found that some of the plugins have added support for sponsored. That accounts for the majority of adoption so far.” My conclusion then still holds: without forced adoption, ugc and sponsored will need the systems people use to adopt them by default before they get common. (That study is from 2020 — treat the exact percentages as a snapshot, not today’s number.)

AI summary

A condensed take on the Advanced version:

• rel="sponsored" = paid/affiliate/ad links; rel="ugc" = user-generated links (comments, forum posts). Google introduced both on Sept 10, 2019, alongside making nofollow a hint.
• All three are hints, not strict directives. They’re “treated as hints,” used “along with other signals.” Generally not followed or counted for ranking, but Google keeps the info.
• No migration required. “There’s absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.” nofollow is still acceptable for paid links; sponsored is preferred. Switch “if or when it is convenient.”
• You can combine values (space- or comma-separated): sponsored nofollow, ugc nofollow, ugc sponsored. Pairing with nofollow is for backwards compatibility.
• Over-tagging is harmless; under-tagging a real ad is the risk. “There’s no wrong attribute except in the case of sponsored links.”
• You still must flag paid links. Undisclosed paid links that pass signals are link spam. Google polices this both algorithmically (the link’s signal gets discounted, or the site ranks lower) and, separately, via a human-reviewed manual action — not automatic just because the link is unqualified; qualifying with sponsored/nofollow keeps you clear of both.
• FTC disclosure is separate. rel="sponsored" is the search-engine signal; a visible reader disclosure is a distinct legal obligation. Do both.
• Qualifying ≠ crawl block. The target “may still be crawled” via sitemapsA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. or other links. For ranking the hint model was immediate; for crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor./indexingStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed., nofollow became a hint March 1, 2020.
• Bing supports them too, also as hints (“not as strong of a signal”).
• Adoption is tiny. In my 2020 study of the top 110k sites: ~0.44% of referring domains used ugc, ~0.01% used sponsored; most sites still use nofollow.

Official documentation

Primary-source documentation from the search engines.

Google

• Qualify your outbound links to Google — the canonical reference: what sponsored, ugc, and nofollow are for, combining values, and the crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor. interaction. Start here.
• Evolving “nofollow” – new ways to identify the nature of links — the Sept 10, 2019 announcement (Danny Sullivan & Gary Illyes), including the hint model and the FAQ on combining values and migration.
• Spam policies for Google web search — Link spam — what counts as buying/selling links, and why qualifying paid links with nofollow/sponsored keeps them compliant.

Bing / Microsoft

• Bing supports rel=sponsored & rel=ugc — Search Engine Land’s coverage (Barry Schwartz, Jun 30, 2020) of Bing adopting the attributes and treating them as hints.

Quotes from the source

On-the-record statements from Google and Bing. Each link is a deep link that jumps to the quoted passage on the source page.

Google — what sponsored and ugc are for

• “Mark links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links) with the sponsored value.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote
• “Use the sponsored attribute to identify links on your site that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements.” — Danny Sullivan & Gary Illyes, Google (Sept 10, 2019). Jump to quote
• “UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc attribute value is recommended for links within user generated content, such as comments and forum posts.” — Danny Sullivan & Gary Illyes, Google (Sept 10, 2019). Jump to quote
• “We recommend marking user-generated content (UGC) links, such as comments and forum posts, with the ugc value.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote

Google — they’re hints, not directives

• “All the link attributes—sponsored, ugc, and nofollow—are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. We’ll use these hints—along with other signals—as a way to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.” — Danny Sullivan & Gary Illyes, Google (Sept 10, 2019). Jump to quote
• “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.” Jump to quote

Google — no migration, and combining values

• “There’s absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.” — Danny Sullivan & Gary Illyes, Google (Sept 10, 2019). Jump to quote
• “You may specify multiple rel values as a space- or comma-separated list.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote
• “rel="ugc sponsored" is a perfectly valid attribute which hints that the link came from user-generated content and is sponsored.” Jump to quote

Google — the wrong-attribute nuance, and crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor.

• “There’s no wrong attribute except in the case of sponsored links. If you flag a UGC link or a non-ad link as sponsored, we’ll see that hint but the impact—if any at all—would be at most that we might not count the link as a credit for another page.” Jump to quote
• “Links marked with these rel attributes will generally not be followed. Remember that the linked pages may be foundA 302 (\"Found\") is a temporary redirect: it forwards users to a new URL while telling search engines the original URL should stay in the index. It's a weak canonicalization signal, not the zero-equity dead end of SEO folklore. through other means, such as sitemapsA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. or links from other sites, and thus they may still be crawled.” — Google Search Central docs. Jump to quote

Google — paid links and link spam

• “Google does understand that buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web for advertising and sponsorship purposes. It’s not a violation of our policies to have such links as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value to the <a> tag.” — Google Search Central, spam policies. Jump to quote
• “We detect policy-violating practices both through automated systems and, as needed, human review that can result in a manual action.” — Google Search Central, spam policies. Algorithmic detection is the default path; a manual action is the separate, human-reviewed escalation. Jump to quote

Bing / Microsoft (via Search Engine Land’s coverage)

• A Bing spokesperson described the attributes as “not as strong of a signal for Bing” — Bing supports sponsored/ugc in addition to nofollow, and treats them as hints rather than firm directives. Read the coverage

Which attribute for which link — cheat sheet

Pick by link type

Valid combinations

Fast facts

• All three (sponsored, ugc, nofollow) are hints, not directives — generally not followed or counted for ranking.
• No migration required — keep your existing nofollow; switch “if or when convenient.”
• Over-tagging is harmless; under-tagging a real ad is the risk.
• You must still flag paid links — untagged paid links are link spam.
• rel="sponsored" ≠ FTC disclosure — that’s a separate, reader-facing requirement. Do both.
• Qualifying ≠ crawl block — the target can still be crawled via sitemapsA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. or other links.
• Only nofollow also exists as a robots meta tag; sponsored/ugc work only in <a> elements.

Common mistakes with sponsored and UGC links

Ripping out your existing nofollow links to “migrate” to sponsored/ugc. Why it’s wrong: there’s no deadline and no requirement — Google was explicit that “there’s absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.” Doing a site-wide rewrite burns engineering time for zero benefit. What to do instead: leave existing nofollow links alone and only use sponsored/ ugc going forward, or switch “if or when it is convenient.”

Treating sponsored/ugc as passing partial ranking credit. Why it’s wrong: neither value is a “softer nofollowrel=\"nofollow\" is a value of the HTML link rel attribute that tells search engines you don't vouch for a linked page and don't want to pass ranking signals to it. Since 2019–2020 Google treats it as a hint, not a directive — and it does not reliably block crawling or indexing.” that leaks some link equity — like nofollow, they’re hints that the link generally isn’t followed or counted for ranking. What to do instead: don’t budget for any SEO lift from tagging a link correctly; the benefit is compliance, not ranking power.

Leaving a real paid or affiliate link untagged. Why it’s wrong: this is the one mistake that actually carries risk — an undisclosed paid link that passes ranking signals is link spam under Google’s policies, enforced both algorithmically (the link’s signal discounted, the site ranking lower) and, separately, through a human-reviewed manual action — the manual action isn’t a guaranteed outcome just for being unqualified. What to do instead: tag every ad, sponsorship, and affiliate link (including Amazon links) with sponsored (or at minimum nofollow); when unsure, over-tagging is harmless but under-tagging isn’t.

Assuming rel="sponsored" satisfies FTC disclosure rules. Why it’s wrong: sponsored is a machine-readable signal for search engines, not a disclosure to human readers — they’re two separate obligations, one to Google/Bing and one under FTC endorsement rules. What to do instead: qualify the link and add a visible, plain-language disclosure to readers when there’s a material connection (affiliate link, sponsored post, free product).

Believing a sponsored/ugc tag blocks crawlingCrawling is how search engines use automated bots (like Googlebot and Bingbot) to discover URLs and download pages. A page has to be crawlable to be indexed, but crawling on its own isn't a ranking factor. or indexingStoring a crawled page in the search index so it can appear in results. Crawled is not the same as indexed — Google selects what to keep, and indexing isn't guaranteed. of the target. Why it’s wrong: Google’s own docs say linked pages “may still be crawled” through sitemapsA sitemap is a file that lists the pages, images, videos, and other files on your site so search engines can discover them. It helps discovery, but submitting a sitemap doesn't guarantee crawling or indexing. or other links pointing to them — qualifying an outbound link is not a crawl block. What to do instead: use robots.txt to stop your own URLs from being crawled and noindex to keep pages out of the index; don’t rely on a rel attribute for either job.

Adding sponsored or nofollow to internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them. “just in case.” Why it’s wrong: there’s essentially no scenario where you shouldn’t vouch for your own site’s internal linksAn internal link is a hyperlink from one page on a website to another page on the same website. Internal links help search engines discover your pages and pass ranking signals (PageRank and anchor-text context) between them. — seeing sponsored on an internal link is usually a plugin misfire or template error, not a deliberate choice. What to do instead: audit internal links for accidental rel values and remove them; reserve these attributes for links pointing off your site.

Auditing outbound links for rel values

These snippets help you find outbound links on a page (or across a crawl) and check whether paid or user-generated links carry the right rel value.

Chrome DevTools Console — list outbound links and their rel values

Run this in the Console tab on any page you want to spot-check:

Array.from(document.querySelectorAll('a[href]'))
  .filter(a => {
    try {
      return new URL(a.href, location.href).hostname !== location.hostname;
    } catch { return false; }
  })
  .map(a => ({
    href: a.href,
    rel: a.getAttribute('rel') || '(none)',
    text: a.textContent.trim().slice(0, 60),
  }));

This filters to links pointing to a different hostname (outbound), then reports each link’s href, its current rel attribute (or (none) if unset), and the first 60 characters of its anchor textAnchor text is the visible, clickable text of a hyperlink. It tells readers what they'll find on the other end and gives search engines context about the linked page. so you can eyeball which ones look like ads, affiliate links, or comment content.

Screaming Frog custom extraction — XPath for <a> tags and their rel

Add this as a custom extraction (XPath, “Extract HTML Element”) to pull every outbound anchor plus its rel attribute during a crawl:

//a[@href]

Pair it with a second extraction for just the attribute value so you can filter in the export:

//a[@href]/@rel

Cross-reference the two columns in the export: any row whose href points off-domain and whose rel is empty (or missing sponsored/ugc/nofollow) is a candidate for review.

Regex — check whether a link’s rel attribute already qualifies it

Use this against extracted HTML (or a raw link-attribute dump) to flag anchors that are missing all three qualifying values:

<a\s+[^>]*href="([^"]+)"[^>]*(?:rel="([^"]*)")?[^>]*>

• Capture group 1 — the href value, so you can see which URL is unqualified.
• Capture group 2 — the rel attribute’s contents, if present at all (the group is optional, since many untagged links have no rel attribute).

After matching, check group 2 for the substrings sponsored, ugc, and nofollow in your script or spreadsheet formula — any outbound link where none of the three appear is worth a manual look to confirm whether it’s paid, user-generated, or genuinely untagged on purpose.

Bookmarklet — highlight outbound links missing a qualifying rel

Drag this to your bookmarks bar, then click it on any page to visually flag outbound links that have no sponsored, ugc, or nofollow value:

javascript:(function(){document.querySelectorAll('a[href]').forEach(function(a){try{if(new URL(a.href,location.href).hostname!==location.hostname){var rel=(a.getAttribute('rel')||'');if(!/sponsored|ugc|nofollow/.test(rel)){a.style.outline='2px solid red';}}}catch(e){}});})();

Red outlines mark outbound links with no qualifying rel value at all — use it as a quick visual pass before deciding which ones actually need sponsored or ugc.

Resources worth your time

My related writing

• The State of Nofollow, UGC, & Sponsored Link Attributes in 2020 [New Research] — my study of the top 110k sites: how rarely ugc and sponsored are actually used (~0.44% / ~0.01% of referring domains), and why adoption tracks platforms like WordPress 5.3.
• The Beginner’s Guide to Technical SEO — where link attributes fit in the bigger picture.

Official, but the source of truth

• Google’s Qualify your outbound links to Google — the reference doc for all three attributes and how they’re treated.
• Google’s Evolving “nofollow” announcement — the FAQ at the bottom answers most real-world “do I have to…?” questions.

From around the industry

• r/TechSEO — a good place to sanity-check edge cases on link attributes and paid-link policy.
• An SEO guide to nofollow, UGC and sponsored links (Search Engine Land) — comprehensive evergreen reference on how all three link attributes work and when to use each.
• Bing supports rel=sponsored & rel=ugc (Search Engine Land, Barry Schwartz, Jun 2020) — covers Bing’s adoption, its guideline wording on paid links, and its “not as strong of a signal” treatment.
• Google Search Central Help Community — official Google community where edge cases on link markup and paid-link policy get answered by Google employees and top contributors.

Quiz

rel=sponsored & rel=ugc

rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" are link attribute values you put on <a> tags to tell search engines a link's nature: sponsored for paid/affiliate/ad links, ugc for user-generated links like comments and forum posts. Both are hints, not strict directives.

Related: Nofollow, Robots Meta Tag

rel=sponsored & rel=ugc

rel="sponsored" and rel="ugc" are two link-relationship attribute values Google introduced on September 10, 2019, alongside the change that turned nofollow into a hint. You add them to an <a> tag to describe the nature of an outbound link so search engines can decide how to treat it.

• rel="sponsored" marks links that are advertisements, paid placements, affiliate links, or anything created as part of a compensation agreement. It’s the preferred value for paid links, though nofollow is still an acceptable way to flag them.
• rel="ugc" marks links inside user-generated content — blog comments, forum posts, and similar contributions you didn’t write yourself.

Three things define how they behave. They are hints, not strict directives: Google treats all three link attributes (sponsored, ugc, and nofollow) as hints it uses “along with other signals,” and generally won’t pass ranking credit through them. You can combine values in a space- or comma-separated list — rel="sponsored nofollow", rel="ugc nofollow", or rel="ugc sponsored" are all valid. And they’re optional: you do not need to migrate existing nofollow markup, because nofollow still works for ads and UGC. The practical stakes sit with sponsored — leaving paid or advertorial links unqualified is link spam under Google’s policies and can trigger a manual action.

Related: Nofollow, Robots Meta Tag

Changelog