link rel attributes
Also called: rel attribute, link attributes, rel attributes
Link rel attributes are values on an HTML link's rel attribute that describe the linked page's relationship to yours. The SEO-relevant ones are nofollow, sponsored, and ugc, which tell Google not to pass ranking credit through that link. You can combine values in a space-separated list, like rel="ugc nofollow".
The three link qualifiers Google reads
An <a> tag can carry one or more rel values in a space- or comma-separated list. Three matter for search:
rel="sponsored"marks paid links, ads, and paid placements.rel="ugc"marks user-generated content, like blog comments and forum posts.rel="nofollow"is the catch-all for links you would rather not vouch for.
Google added sponsored and ugc on September 10, 2019, alongside a change in how all three behave. Since that date they act as hints for ranking, and from March 1, 2020 nofollow became a hint for crawling and indexing too, not a hard directive. In practice Google still generally does not pass ranking credit through a qualified link, but it may crawl the destination if it finds the URL elsewhere.
Other rel values do unrelated jobs. noopener and noreferrer are browser-security tokens with no SEO weight, and rel="canonical" lives on the <link> element to consolidate duplicate URLs, not to control link equity. Mixing up these buckets is a common audit error. A single link can legitimately combine values, for example rel="ugc nofollow" on a comment link.
For anyone earning links, the attribute on the linking page decides whether a backlink can move rankings. A followed link (none of nofollow, sponsored, or ugc) is the one that transfers authority.
How it affects your traffic
When you audit or earn backlinks, the rel attribute is the first thing to check. A link tagged rel="sponsored", rel="ugc", or rel="nofollow" is unlikely to move your rankings, so a profile stuffed with them can look large while doing little. Our link building work targets editorially followed placements on relevant sites, the kind that actually pass authority, and screens out paid or comment-farm links that Google discounts. Getting the mix of followed and qualified links right is what turns outreach into real ranking gains.
Get Link Building that moves the needle
We turn terms like this into ranked pages and qualified pipeline. Start with a free Initial SEO Strategy.