How to Use Nofollow Sponsored and UGC Link Attributes

When you link to another website, your HTML can describe why the link is there. The rel attribute holds that description: use sponsored for a compensated link, ugc for a link submitted by a user, and nofollow when you do not want to endorse or associate your site with the destination and neither other label fits.

These values help Google understand links, but they do not guarantee that Google will ignore a destination or change its rankings. Choose the value that fits the link, then check the published page to confirm your site includes it.

Choose the value that matches the link

Google says publishers should use sponsored for advertisements and other compensated links. Google still accepts nofollow for paid links, including existing ones, but recommends sponsored for clearer classification. For user-contributed links, use ugc; Google says publishers can remove that value for contributors who consistently make high-quality contributions. See Google’s outbound link guidance.

A link can fit more than one description. Put multiple values in the same rel attribute, separated by spaces. For example:

<a href="https://example.com/offer" rel="sponsored ugc">Community offer</a>

The rel value describes the link’s relationship to your site. It does not replace clear wording for readers. If a commercial relationship needs disclosure, add a reader-facing disclosure as well. The FTC’s endorsement guidance discusses disclosures for material connections, including affiliate relationships.

What the attributes tell Google

Add the values to the link itself, usually an HTML link element called an anchor. Its href attribute identifies the destination. Google treats sponsored, ugc, and nofollow as hints when evaluating links. Google says it generally will not follow links with these values, but the destination can still be discovered through other links or a sitemap. Google may still crawl or index a destination despite these attributes.

Visitors can still use the link. Google’s link best practices explain that a crawlable link uses an <a> element with an href. A visual button or click handler without that link markup does not provide the same crawlable link.

Google’s hint model also limits what you can conclude from the markup. The values tell Google how you classify a link; they do not promise a ranking effect, prevent a destination from appearing in search, or guarantee that Google will treat every link the same way. Google’s announcement about these link values describes them as signals Google can consider, not rigid instructions.

Check the published link

An editor setting or plugin checkbox does not prove that the live page contains the intended markup. After publishing, inspect the actual link in your browser’s developer tools. Confirm that the link has the correct href and that its rel attribute includes the value you chose.

For example, an affiliate link should show rel="sponsored" on the anchor itself. If your site renders links with JavaScript, inspect the rendered page as well as the initial HTML. Google’s guidance on JavaScript search issues describes ways to check what Google can render.

After a change to your content management system (CMS), theme, or plugin, check a representative example of each link type your site publishes, such as an affiliate link and a comment link. If the expected value is missing from the live link, correct the template or publishing settings and check the output again. This verifies the markup, not whether Google has crawled the page or how it has treated the link.

Avoid common misuses

Do not add nofollow to every external link by default. Google says ordinary editorial links do not need qualification. Use a value when the link’s circumstances call for it, rather than treating the attribute as a general setting for outbound links.

Mark compensated links with sponsored or nofollow. Google’s spam policies identify paid links that pass ranking credit as a link-spam concern and recognize sponsored or nofollow as ways to qualify them. Adding an attribute does not make every paid-link arrangement acceptable under those policies, because the arrangement itself still matters.

Do not rely on nofollow to keep a destination out of search. Google may discover that page elsewhere, and the attribute is a hint rather than a crawl-blocking instruction. Likewise, do not mark every user-submitted link ugc without considering who submitted it and how your site moderates contributions. Google recommends combining link qualification with spam prevention and moderation, as described in its guidance on user-generated spam.

What this means for AI search

Google says its AI Overviews and AI Mode use the same foundational SEO practices as its other search features. Its AI features guidance says a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in regular Search with a snippet to qualify as a supporting link. That guidance does not establish that nofollow, sponsored, or ugc improves AI visibility or citations. Use the values to describe the link accurately, not as an AI-search optimization promise.

Key Takeaways

• Match the relationship: Use sponsored for compensated links, ugc for user-submitted links, and nofollow when you do not endorse a link and the other labels do not fit.
• Combine values when needed: Add multiple rel values when a link fits more than one description, such as sponsored ugc.
• Inspect the live HTML: Confirm the published anchor contains the expected href and rel values, especially after CMS or template changes.
• Treat the values as hints: They offer no guarantee about rankings, and Google can still find the destination.
• Disclose commercial ties separately: HTML link attributes do not replace clear disclosure to readers when one is needed.

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