Not every link should pass SEO value, and Google gives you attributes to say so. Nofollow links, along with the newer sponsored and ugc values, let you tell search engines how to treat a link: as an editorial endorsement, a paid placement, or user-generated content. Using them correctly keeps you compliant with Google’s guidelines and protects your site’s link profile. This guide explains each attribute, when to use it, and how it affects SEO.
What the rel attribute does
By default, a link passes ranking signals (“link equity”) to the page it points to, an editorial vote of confidence. The rel attribute on a link lets you qualify that vote. Adding rel="nofollow" (and its cousins) tells search engines something about the nature of the link, most importantly that you may not want to pass your endorsement to the destination. It is how you link to something without vouching for it.
The three link attributes
Google now recognises three related values, and you can combine them:
| Attribute | Use it for |
|---|---|
| rel=”nofollow” | Links you don’t want to endorse or pass equity to |
| rel=”sponsored” | Paid or affiliate links (ads, sponsorships) |
| rel=”ugc” | User-generated content (comments, forum posts) |
Since 2019, Google treats these as hints rather than strict directives, but using the most accurate one is still the right, compliant practice, and sponsored in particular matters for disclosing paid links.
When to use each
Match the attribute to the link’s real nature. Use sponsored for anything paid: affiliate links, advertisements, sponsored posts, this is how you avoid the “unnatural links” problem that can trigger a penalty. Use ugc for links inside content your users create, blog comments, forum threads, reviews, where you cannot vouch for every link. Use nofollow as the general “I don’t endorse this” option, for example when citing a source you are criticising, or linking to a login or untrusted page. Ordinary editorial links you do endorse need no rel attribute at all.
Why paid-link disclosure matters
The single most important reason to use these attributes is compliance. Google’s guidelines require that paid links not pass ranking signals, so an affiliate or sponsored link without sponsored (or nofollow) is a guideline violation that can lead to a manual action against your site. Marking paid links correctly protects you. It also protects the sites you link to and keeps the link graph honest, which is the whole point of the system. So while the attributes are “hints” for ranking purposes, using them for paid and sponsored links is not optional, it is how you stay on the right side of the rules.
A note on nofollow and internal links
One common misunderstanding: nofollow is for external links you do not want to endorse, not a tool for sculpting how authority flows around your own site. Using nofollow on internal links to “channel” PageRank to important pages is an outdated tactic that no longer works the way people imagine and generally just wastes crawl signals. For your internal links, link normally and let your site structure and internal linking do the work. Reserve rel attributes for the external cases they were designed for, paid, user-generated, or unendorsed links, and keep your internal linking clean and followable so crawlers can move through your site freely.
Generate the right link
Getting the exact rel syntax right, and combining values like rel="sponsored nofollow", is easy to fumble by hand. Our free nofollow link generator builds the correct link HTML with the attributes you choose, ready to paste in. Pair it with our anchor text checker to keep your link anchors natural, and see our guide to anchor text best practices.
The takeaway
The rel attributes, nofollow, sponsored and ugc, let you tell search engines how to treat a link: unendorsed, paid, or user-generated. Use sponsored for paid and affiliate links (required for compliance), ugc for user content, and nofollow as the general “no endorsement” option, while ordinary editorial links need none. Don’t misuse nofollow to sculpt internal links. Build correct links with our nofollow link generator, and explore the rest of our free SEO tools.