Links to Sponsored and User-Generated Content

Publishers can add UGC and sponsored attribute tags to outbound links to help Googlebot to better understand the nature of links.

Until Google introduced the two new link attributes in September 2019, nofollow tags were used to flag sponsored or advertising links that failed to meet Google’s guidelines.

The nofollow link attribute was first introduced in January 2005 to address comment spamming issues and to identify untrusted links from user-generated content (UGC). By September that year, Google was also recommending its use for advertising-related links.

The nofollow link attribute was considered a signal for Google not to count the link, so PageRank wasn’t transferred to it. If you wanted to ensure that Google ignored the link or didn’t follow it for indexing or crawling, you could simply add rel= “nofollow” to the link.

rel=“nofollow”

Nofollow is used for untrusted links and is considered a hint for crawling and ranking. That means, crawlers can either consider it or ignore it, depending on the situation. It is used in cases where you want to link to a page but don’t intend to indicate any endorsement.

Any outbound links that don’t fall under UGC and sponsored attributes and you don’t wish Google to either associate with your site or crawl need to be marked as nofollow.

Popular websites such as Wikipedia, Reddit, and Twitch mark all their outbound links as nofollow links.

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rel=“sponsored”

Any form of marketing, advertising or paid links should be marked with the sponsored attribute.

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rel=“ugc”

The UGC attribute is used to mark links mentioned in content such as forum posts or user comments.

If your website receives a steady flow of user comments, checking the quality of every suggested link becomes difficult. Marking user-posted links with the UGC attribute helps Google understand why such links were added and whether those links should be included in PageRank calculation.

You can remove this attribute if you wish to recognize trustworthy users who make useful contributions.

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Attribute Combinations

These tags can be combined to help with backward compatibility as some search engines still don’t recognize UGC and sponsored attributes.

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2.7.2 Challenges Publishers Face When Including Sponsored and UGC Attributes

So, what are some of the questions/concerns that publishers have regarding UGC and sponsored link attributes?

• Where and how to use the attributes: Publishers may lack the knowledge of how best to use the UGC and sponsored link attributes, along with nofollow, to qualify the outbound links to Google.

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• Potential consequences of unmarked paid links: Links are a vital part of SEO and Google uses them to ascertain a web page’s relevance. If you don’t mark the paid links on your site, then they may be viewed as link spam.

We have addressed these concerns in detail throughout this module.

2.7.3 Do Sponsored and UGC Attributes Matter for SEO?

Internal and external linking are crucial components of Google’s ranking algorithm and the information contained therein will see websites climb up or slide down the search engine results pages (SERPs).

If the content on your website has outbound links, Google recommends using an appropriate link attribute for each. However, these link attributes are merely hints for site rankings.

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2.7.4 Where and How to Use Attributes

Now that we have a firm grasp of what these attributes do, let’s look at a few scenarios where they can be implemented.

When it comes to outbound links used in coupons/vouchers/offers websites, it is mandatory to use link attributes to adhere to Google guidelines.

Listed below are different scenarios and the relevant attributes one should use for such websites.

• If you are being paid or earning commissions, use the sponsored attribute.

• While we can’t recommend providing referral links to untrustworthy pages, if you intend to do so anyway then you should use the nofollow attribute.

• If there is no monetary incentive involved and you wish to link to that store because it benefits your website users, use the follow attribute.

Here are some scenarios applicable to coupon links submitted via user-generated content:

• If it is an unbranded webpage that contains user-submitted coupons then use the UGC attribute.

• If there is no affiliate relationship with the user-submitted coupon, the UGC is valid.

2.7.5 Identifying Links That Need Attributes

Link building is an important SEO strategy. But what happens when you do not intend to vote for a page you are linking to or when you are getting paid to link to a webpage or when spammy links are posted on your website in the user-generated content section?

In such scenarios, Google recommends using nofollow, sponsored, or UGC link attributes. Refer to the cases below to identify the links that need attributes and the appropriate link attribute for them.

• If you are using a link for advertising purposes or getting paid for it, you should mark those links with sponsored attributes.
• If your webpage has a section that allows users to post comments, links, etc. Such sections should be marked as UGC.
• If you do not wish a website to be followed by the crawlers, use the nofollow link attribute.

Sponsored and UGC attributes are still not recognized by some search engines hence we advise combining them with the nofollow attribute.

You don’t need to make any changes to already existing links that are marked as nofollow.  However, Google recommends using UGC and sponsored attributes as per the type of outbound links used in the future.

2.7.6 How to Insert Attributes on WordPress

Adding attributes to links in WordPress depends on the editor you’re using. For example, the Gutenberg editor allows you to easily add the nofollow and sponsored link attributes.

You won’t need to worry about the UGC attribute, as WordPress 5.3 introduced support for the UGC nofollow by default.

Let’s look at how we can edit links with Gutenberg.

Gutenberg

To view attribute options, click on the down arrow as shown in the image below.

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• Open in New Tab option allows you to open the link in a new window and adds the “target=_blank” attribute to the link tag
• Enabling the nofollow option adds a “rel= nofollow” attribute to the link tag and tells Google not to crawl the linked page.
• Enable Sponsored in case of any paid links. Choosing this option will add “rel= sponsored” to the link tag.

The Gutenberg editor allows you to view the backend code. Just click on the three dots button and select the Edit as HTML option.

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Once you select this option, you will see that WordPress has automatically added two more attributes to the code.

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• aria-label=“(opens in a new tab)” indicates that the link will be opened in a new tab when clicked.
• rel=”noreferrer noopener” attributes are added by WordPress automatically when you select the Open in New Tab option to disable the link tracking for security purposes.

Click on the three dots buttons to select the “Edit Visually” option in the drop-down menu to go back to visual mode.

Other Editors

Gutenburg is not the only WordPress editor, however. For example, SODP uses Elementor. Each editor will have a different process to customize link attributes — here are the processes if you’re using Elementor process — so be sure to check your editor’s documentation.

Disclosure Notice

If you’re using affiliate links on your website then it’s important to add a disclosure. While not directly tied to SEO, disclosing the nature of affiliate links to your audience is key to transparency and building trust with your visitors.

Moreover, for publishers in the US, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires you to inform visitors of any potential compensation opportunities associated with affiliate links.

You can include disclosure notices fairly easily with any number of plugins or widgets. Here are a few examples:

• WP Affiliate Disclosure

• WPLegalPages

• FMTC Affiliate Disclosure

2.7.7 Pitfalls to Avoid

While there are no pitfalls around using the sponsored and UGC attributes per se, you still need to be wary of depending on them to the detriment of best practices.

Not Marking Paid Links

If there is financial compensation involved with the outbound link on your website then it is necessary to declare the link with an attribute.

Whether the link points to the product or the advertiser’s webpage, you are strongly advised to use the sponsored attribute. In the case of paid links, Google recommends using the rel= “sponsored” attribute but the rel= “nofollow” attribute can work as a default catch-all.

But which attribute should you use when it comes to paid links mentioned in the user comments? In such a scenario, publishers are advised to mark the user-generated content with the nofollow attribute or a combination of nofollow and UGC.

Overuse of Outbound Links

Doing this can hurt your website’s SEO value. Linking excessively — such as having 50 outbound links in a 500-word article — makes the page appear like a link farm regardless of how well used your attributes are, hurting its chances to perform well in SERPs.

There is no rule of thumb for the number of links you can place on a page, but we’d advise that you don’t have more than one outbound link for every 100 words. This is not a Google approved rule, but it’s a standard that many publishers have adopted.

A Question of Trust

When you link to a website, you are telling your readers that you vouch for the site’s content. From our experience, we’ve seen that regularly linking to sites with explicit/shocking content can negatively impact the publisher’s own domain rating, regardless of whether the nofollow, UGC and sponsored link attributes are added or not.

There’s a reason why 4chan, one of the biggest and most controversial chat boards, doesn’t surface within Google’s SERPs. For example, a quick examination of ahrefs data on 4chan’s traffic, cross-referenced against Similar Web data, shows that it comes mostly from direct traffic on popular topics that 4chan should rank for in SERPs simply do not appear.

For example, even though 4chan has a huge library of Anime Wallpapers it doesn’t rank in top 100 for the keywords like “anime wallpapers”, while sites like Deviant Art, Pinterest etc. ranks in the top position.

Because 4chan publishes a lot of shocking and pornographic content with associated links, the entire site cluster appears to have been labelled along those lines.

Separately, linking to illegal streaming sites will likely lead to Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) violations being filed, which also creates negative signals for the original domain.

2.7.8 Examples of URL Attributes Used Well

Case Study: NYT Wirecutter

Wirecutter is a well-known product review website owned by The New York Times.

Let’s explore its Cashmere sweater article to understand how it uses the sponsored link attribute.

When we inspect the HTML code for “$75 from Nadaam”. We can see how the sponsored attribute has been incorporated in the code to tell crawlers that it’s an affiliate link.

As we can see highlighted in the image above, the publication has used a combination of sponsored and noreferrer as its rel“=sponsored noreferrer” tag.

The noreferrer in the attribute instructs the browser to hide the referrer information when the link is clicked. It helps protect referral information from being passed to the destination website and hides referral traffic in Google Analytics.

2.7.9 Actions and Takeaways

Having read this article, you should now understand how the introduction of UGC and sponsored link attributes have changed the SEO landscape. You should also feel comfortable in using appropriate attributes for your website’s outbound links.

We recommend creating optimized content and using link-building to enhance your website’s visibility and SERP rankings.