{"id":9388,"date":"2023-05-09T13:31:11","date_gmt":"2023-05-09T13:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/"},"modified":"2023-05-09T13:31:11","modified_gmt":"2023-05-09T13:31:11","slug":"an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/","title":{"rendered":"An SEO guide to nofollow, UGC and sponsored links"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Internal and external links are essential topics every <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/guide\/what-is-seo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">SEO<\/a> must learn.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Links send users to external sites or can be used internally to keep people on your site and help search engines find more of your pages.<\/p>\n<p>Over time, you\u2019ll find links that you want to \u201cexplain\u201d to search engines, such as:<\/p>\n<p>Sponsored links.<\/p>\n<p>User-generated content (UGC) links.<\/p>\n<p>Nofollow links.<\/p>\n<p>Using these attributes properly gives you greater control over how search engines identify and categorize certain links.\u00a0Learn how to master all three of these values to \u201cqualify\u201d the links on your site.<\/p>\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_81 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<span class=\"ez-toc-title-toggle\"><a href=\"#\" class=\"ez-toc-pull-right ez-toc-btn ez-toc-btn-xs ez-toc-btn-default ez-toc-toggle\" aria-label=\"Toggle Table of Content\"><span class=\"ez-toc-js-icon-con\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #999;color:#999\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/#Regular_links_vs_nofollow_UGC_and_sponsored_links\" >Regular links vs. nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/#Why_and_when_to_use_nofollow_UGC_and_sponsored_links\" >Why and when to use nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/#What_if_the_sponsored_link_is_for_an_internal_link\" >What if the sponsored link is for an internal link?<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-4\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/#Identifying_user-generated_content\" >Identifying user-generated content\u00a0<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-5\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/#Using_nofollow_on_links\" >Using nofollow on links<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-6\" href=\"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/09\/an-seo-guide-to-nofollow-ugc-and-sponsored-links\/#Implementing_nofollow_UGC_and_sponsored_links\" >Implementing nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Regular_links_vs_nofollow_UGC_and_sponsored_links\"><\/span>Regular links vs. nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>Regular links are created using simple HTML, such as:<\/p>\n<p>&lt;a href=&#8221;https:\/\/searchengineland.com&#8221;&gt;Search Engine Land&lt;\/a&gt;<\/p>\n<p>If you have this \u201cregular\u201d link on your site, you can expect Google to follow the link and parse the page without qualifiers. It\u2019s a standard link that Google will make its own judgment on.<\/p>\n<p>Let\u2019s assume you have user-generated links but can\u2019t handle moderation. <\/p>\n<p>If you allow these links to be crawled without the right \u201crel\u201d value, it\u2019s possible for someone to spam your site leading to rankings drop.<\/p>\n<p>In such cases, consider using the following:<\/p>\n<p>&lt;a rel=&#8221;ugc&#8221; href=&#8221;https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/user-generated-content\/Ludwig&#8221;&gt;Ludwig\u2019s blog&lt;\/a&gt;<\/p>\n<p>When you add the rel=&#8221;ugc&#8221;, you\u2019re telling search engines that this is user-generated content. <\/p>\n<p>Over time, as you begin to trust a certain user and realize that their contributions provide immense value to your community, you can remove the UGC value.<\/p>\n<p>If your site is doing well and an advertiser offers to pay for a link or ad on your site, you can add the following:<\/p>\n<p>&lt;a rel=&#8221;sponsored&#8221; href=&#8221;https:\/\/example.com&#8221;&gt;Sponsored ad&lt;\/a&gt;<\/p>\n<p>Using rel=&#8221;sponsored&#8221; allows you to tell search engines that the link isn\u2019t spam but is sponsored. Review <a href=\"https:\/\/developers.google.com\/search\/docs\/essentials\/spam-policies\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Google\u2019s Spam Policy<\/a> to make sure that your site isn\u2019t seen as spamming its users.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, if you have a link you don\u2019t want search engines to crawl, you can use rel=&#8221;nofollow&#8221; just like we did in the previous examples.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>When you use this parameter, you\u2019re telling search engines not to pass \u201cranking credit\u201d to the page.<\/p>\n<p><!-- START INLINE FORM --><\/p>\n<div class=\"nl-inline-form border py-2 px-1 my-2\">\n<div class=\"row align-items-center\">\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-3 col-xl-4 pe-md-0 pb-2 pb-lg-0\">\n<p class=\"inline-form-text text-center mb-0\">Get the daily newsletter search marketers rely on.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-7 col-xl-6  pe-lg-0\">\n<div class=\"form-nl-inline\">\n<div class=\"row g-0\">\n<div class=\"form-group col-12 col-lg-8 mb-0\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-4 col-xl-4 mb-0\">\n<div class=\"d-none\">\n<p>Processing\u2026Please wait.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<button class=\"btn btn-dark inlineButton w-100 rounded-0 font-weight-bold\">SUBSCRIBE<\/button>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"col-12 col-lg-2 col-xl-2 ps-1\">\n<p class=\"text-center mb-0\"><a class=\"nl-terms\" href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/termsofuse\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">See terms.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END INLINE FORM --><\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Why_and_when_to_use_nofollow_UGC_and_sponsored_links\"><\/span>Why and when to use nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>As a site owner or manager, you have control over your domain but not others.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>For example, let\u2019s say you run a website about cats, and someone offers you $500 to advertise their cat beds on your site.<\/p>\n<p>When you check the advertiser&#8217;s site, you see fantastic cat beds that your audience will love and approve the sponsored link.<\/p>\n<p>A month or two goes by, and when you return, it has been redirected to a torrent website you do not want to be associated with.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s easy for the site owner to create a redirect from their page to another, and they can even do something manipulative, such as:<\/p>\n<p>Redirect your IP address to the cat site.<\/p>\n<p>Send anything not flagged as your IP address to a spam site.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019re in a scenario where this could happen, a rel=&#8221;sponsored&#8221; tag will identify the link as a paid agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In the case above, you may also want to consider the rel=&#8221;nofollow&#8221; tag, meaning that you don\u2019t want to pass credit to the site.<\/p>\n<p>I recommend identifying sponsored links as rel=&#8221;sponsored&#8221; because search engines prefer you to do this.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"What_if_the_sponsored_link_is_for_an_internal_link\"><\/span>What if the sponsored link is for an internal link?<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>For example, if you write a sponsored product review on your site, would you add rel=&#8221;sponsored&#8221; to the link?<\/p>\n<p>Google\u2019s John Mueller, who I&#8217;ll be referring to a lot in the coming sections, says:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Nah, within the site is not really an issue, since you&#8217;re just linking from one part of your site to the other part.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>You can see the question and all of the responses in the tweet below:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<p>Hi <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/JohnMu?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@JohnMu<\/a> &#8211; question about link attributes:<\/p>\n<p>If you have pages on your site that offer a sponsored review of a brand\/product w\/ affiliate links (and that&#8217;s the entire purpose of the page), should internal links to those pages contain any attributes (rel=sponsored, etc.)?<\/p>\n<p>TY <\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Lily Ray  (@lilyraynyc) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/lilyraynyc\/status\/1478471016942817283?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">January 4, 2022<\/a>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Identifying_user-generated_content\"><\/span>Identifying user-generated content\u00a0<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/user-generated-content-for-seo-the-cost-benefit-analysis-you-need-316405\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">User-generated content <\/a>can provide a wealth of information to your community. <\/p>\n<p>But there&#8217;s a reason you see so many blogs removing their comment sections: spam is out of control. <\/p>\n<p>Others can use any user-generated content to spam your site.<\/p>\n<p>It is an unfortunate consequence of offering user-generated content on your site.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll want to use the rel=&#8221;ugc&#8221; tag for:<\/p>\n<p>Forum posts.<\/p>\n<p>Comments.<\/p>\n<p>Anywhere users can add content.<\/p>\n<p>Instead of taking my word for it, listen to Mueller&#8217;s insights on the topic:<\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<\/div>\n<p>He states the following:<\/p>\n<p>Google doesn&#8217;t differentiate between what you write and what your users write on your site.<\/p>\n<p>If the content is published on your site, it will be used for ranking purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Web admins that publish user-generated content should moderate it before allowing it to be published.<\/p>\n<p>Webmasters can noindex the content before moderation using &lt;meta name=&#8221;robots&#8221; content=&#8221;noindex&#8221;&gt;.<\/p>\n<p>You can\u2019t vouch for the links before the post is moderated, so use the rel=&#8221;ugc&#8221; attribute.<\/p>\n<p>If you follow these guidelines, you&#8217;ll protect your site from potential user-generated content spam.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Using_nofollow_on_links\"><\/span>Using nofollow on links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If the link you\u2019re linking to is external, you may want to use the rel=&#8221;nofollow&#8221; attribute to tell search bots not to follow the link.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>A general rule of thumb is that if you&#8217;re adding an attribute that doesn&#8217;t fall into the UGC or sponsored category, use <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/googles-new-treatment-of-nofollow-links-has-arrived-329862\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">nofollow<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Over the years, I&#8217;ve learned a lot of best practices for using the nofollow<em> <\/em>attribute, such as:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/SEO\/comments\/zwch8h\/should_we_relnofollow_social_media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Avoid using<\/a> this attribute when you link to your social media profiles.<\/p>\n<p>Consider using rel=&#8221;me&#8221; for your social pages because they\u2019re a representation of you<\/p>\n<p>Don&#8217;t use nofollow to try and stop indexing. Instead, use noindex like in the previous section.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also important to note that <strong>&#8220;nofollow&#8221; is not a dampening factor<\/strong>. Even if you add this attribute to a link, it doesn&#8217;t lower the link&#8217;s value. Instead, the link has <strong>no<\/strong><em> <\/em>value.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Many people tend to debate this, but Mueller clarified this in a <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/HeySannidhi\/status\/1508655497196740619\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">2022 tweet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Still, many industry experts claim they notice a boost in rankings even if the link is a nofollow.<\/p>\n<p>You&#8217;ll need to make the judgment for yourself and implement link attributes accordingly.<\/p>\n<h2><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Implementing_nofollow_UGC_and_sponsored_links\"><\/span>Implementing nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>If you have a large enterprise site, like many clients I work with, it&#8217;s essential to have policies and procedures for developers and anyone posting content.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>You can create rules and instances when the stakeholders add link attributes.<\/p>\n<p>You don\u2019t need to use these link attributes if you don\u2019t see the need for them on your site. Many of my blog posts don&#8217;t include these attributes because I link out to high-quality sites.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>However, when the content is sponsored or user-generated, these attributes serve as helpful tools for controlling how search engines qualify links.<\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/rel-nofollow-ugc-sponsored-links-seo-413534\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">An SEO guide to nofollow, UGC and sponsored links<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/searchengineland.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Search Engine Land<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Internal and external links are essential topics every SEO must learn.\u00a0 Links send users to external sites or can be used internally to keep people on your site and help search engines find more of your pages. Over time, you\u2019ll find links that you want to \u201cexplain\u201d to search engines, such as: Sponsored links. User-generated content (UGC) links. Nofollow links. Using these attributes properly gives you greater control over how search engines identify and categorize certain links.\u00a0Learn how to master all three of these values to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"h5ap_radio_sources":[],"cybocfi_hide_featured_image":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9388","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-seo-blogs"],"featured_image_src":null,"featured_image_src_square":null,"author_info":{"display_name":false,"author_link":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/author\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9388","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9388\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/craighordlow.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}