Mark links you were paid to place, including sponsor and affiliate links, as sponsored or nofollow. Use ugc for links in comments if you like. Existing nofollow links can stay as they are, and ordinary links need no label.

What Google announced yesterday

Google announced yesterday two new values for the rel attribute on links, the small piece of code that describes how a link relates to the page it points to.

Sponsored is for links that are advertising or paid placement. The other, ugc, short for user-generated content, is for links in comments, forum posts and reviews written by visitors.

Nofollow stays, for any other link you do not want to vouch for. The values can be combined on one link.

The bigger change is in how Google treats all three. They are now hints rather than instructions.

From instruction to hint

Until now, Google treated nofollow as a rule. It did not count the link as an endorsement, and generally did not follow it to find new pages.

From yesterday, nofollow, sponsored and ugc are hints for ranking. Google will usually respect them, but may count a link if it judges that useful.

From March 1, 2020, the same applies to crawling and indexing, so a nofollow link may then be followed to discover the page behind it.

That second date matters more than it sounds, for one reason covered below.

Which value goes where

The fourth covers most links on most business sites. A link to a supplier, a trade association, a local partner or a useful source is an ordinary editorial link, and it needs no label.

What a business site actually has to do

For most small business sites, one thing: make sure links you were paid to place are marked, as sponsored or as nofollow.

That has always been Google's rule. Paid links that pass ranking credit break its guidelines; the new value simply gives them a clearer name.

Look for three kinds: sponsors' logos on an event or community page, paid listings you host for other businesses, and affiliate links in blog posts or product recommendations.

Paid links already marked nofollow are fine as they are. Google has said there is no need to change them.

What it does not need to do

Do not go back through every link changing nofollow to the new values. Nofollow remains supported, and nothing is gained by relabelling.

Do not mark ordinary outbound links nofollow out of caution. Linking to good sources is what websites do, and labelling every link suggests you trust nothing you link to.

And do not put nofollow on links between your own pages. That old habit, meant to steer ranking credit around a site, stopped working about a decade ago.

Comments and reviews

Links in blog comments have always attracted spam, which is why WordPress already marks them nofollow automatically. That remains fine; there is nothing to change.

The ugc value can sit alongside it if a plugin or theme update offers it. If not, nothing is lost.

The real protection is moderation: comments held for approval, and links removed unless they are genuinely useful. A label on a spam link still leaves a spam link on your page.

A worked example

A company that organises a summer series of trail running races keeps a site with race pages, a results archive, a blog of course previews, and a sponsors page.

When the site was reviewed in the spring, its sponsors page carried a plain link for each of the eight businesses that paid to support the series. The blog's gear posts used affiliate links to an outdoor retailer, also unlabelled.

Separately, an SEO plugin set up years earlier had marked every link to the results archive nofollow, on the theory that it saved ranking credit for the race pages.

So paid links were presented as ordinary endorsements, which Google's rules forbid, while the results, the pages runners visit most, were labelled by the site itself as not worth following.

The fix took an afternoon. The paid links were marked nofollow, the plugin setting was switched off, and comment links kept the nofollow WordPress already adds.

After yesterday's announcement, nothing needs redoing. The paid links can be relabelled sponsored when convenient, or left as they are, and the sponsors keep the visitors those links send.

Nofollow is not a way to hide a page

Some sites use nofollow on a link to keep a page out of search: a thank-you page, an old offer, a members' area. It never worked reliably, since anyone else linking to the page undid it.

Once nofollow becomes a crawling hint next March, it will work even less. Google may follow the link and find the page anyway.

To keep a page out of results, use a robots meta tag set to noindex, or a password for anything genuinely private.

Links pointing to your site

The same rules apply in the other direction. If your business pays for a link on someone else's site, such as a sponsorship, a paid listing or a blogger's review, that link should carry sponsored or nofollow there.

That does not make it worthless. It still sends visitors, and a sponsorship is usually bought for visibility in the community rather than for search.

What it should not be is a paid link dressed as an editorial one. A sponsorship package that promises better search rankings deserves caution.

The counter-case

Plenty of business sites have nothing to change at all.

A site with no sponsors, no affiliate links and no comments has only ordinary links, and ordinary links need no label.

A site that already marks its paid links nofollow is compliant as it stands; the new values are optional.

Where a site does carry paid links, though, label them now, with sponsored or nofollow, and leave everything else alone.

What to do

  1. Find every sponsor and partner link on the site.
  2. Find every affiliate link in posts and pages.
  3. Mark paid links sponsored or nofollow.
  4. Leave existing nofollow links as they are.
  5. Remove nofollow from links between your own pages.
  6. Keep comments moderated, labels or not.
  7. Use noindex, not nofollow, to hide pages.

Step three is the only one Google requires. Everything else on the list is tidying; a paid link presented as an editorial one is the single thing here that can count against a site.

Settings a theme or plugin quietly decides for you are the same problem as in title tags written by the theme.

Frequently asked questions

What are the sponsored and ugc values?

Two new link labels Google announced on September 10: sponsored for paid links such as ads, sponsorships and affiliates, and ugc for links in visitors' comments, reviews and forum posts.

Do I need to change my nofollow links?

No. Google has said existing nofollow links do not need changing. Nofollow remains supported, including for paid links, so relabelling them gains nothing.

What does treating nofollow as a hint mean?

Google may now count a nofollow link for ranking if it judges that useful, and from March 1, 2020 it may also follow such links to discover pages.

Which links must be marked?

Links you were paid to place: sponsors' logos, paid listings and affiliate links. They need sponsored or nofollow, since paid links passing ranking credit break Google's guidelines.

Should links between my own pages be nofollow?

No. Marking internal links nofollow stopped steering ranking credit about a decade ago, and it only tells search engines your own pages are not worth following.

Can nofollow keep a page out of Google?

It never did so reliably, and less so once it becomes a crawling hint next March. Use a noindex robots meta tag, or a password for private pages.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

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