sponsored link
Also called: rel=sponsored, paid link attribute, sponsored attribute
A sponsored link is an outbound link tagged with the rel="sponsored" attribute, which tells Google the link exists because of advertising, a sponsorship, or another paid arrangement. Google introduced it in 2019 and treats it, like nofollow, as a hint not to pass ranking credit.
The attribute lives inside the anchor tag, for example <a rel="sponsored" href="https://advertiser.com">. It flags a link that was created as part of an advertisement, sponsorship, or other compensation agreement.
Sponsored vs nofollow vs ugc
Google rolled out sponsored and ugc on 10 September 2019 alongside the older nofollow. Use sponsored for paid placements (ads, sponsorships, paid guest posts), ugc for user-generated links (comments, forum posts), and nofollow when you link without endorsing. Purely editorial links, where you cite a source or a useful resource with no money changing hands, need no attribute at all. Google still accepts nofollow for paid links, but prefers sponsored.
All three are hints, not hard directives. Since 1 March 2020 Google reads them as hints for crawling and indexing too, so a marked page can still be found and crawled through sitemaps or links from other sites. You can stack values, for example rel="sponsored ugc".
The reason the tag matters: Google’s spam policies treat paid links that pass PageRank without a sponsored or nofollow tag as a link scheme. So the attribute is less a suggestion than a disclosure that keeps a paid link from looking like manipulation.
How it affects your traffic
If you buy links or run sponsored placements and skip the rel="sponsored" tag, Google can read the deal as a link scheme and devalue the links or issue a manual action, which drags down the rankings you paid for. Tagged sponsored links also pass no ranking credit by design, so paying for them to rank is both risky and ineffective. Our Link Building service earns editorial follow links that actually move rankings, and audits your existing paid and outbound links so they are attributed correctly and stay penalty-safe.
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