UGC, Sponsored Are The Two New Nofollow Link Attributes Introduce By Google

ugc sponsored nofollow

Google is one of the top search engines in the world, and it is continuously upgrading the search engine to understand the behavior of the links. That is why they have recently launched two more nofollow link attributes that is UGC sponsored

So, Recently Google has unfolded two new attributes of the nofollow link, and from now onwards nofollow link attributes (rel=”nofollow”) would be considered as a “hint” rather than as a directive for ranking purposes.

In Search Engine Optimization, no follow is an attribute you add to a hyperlink.
It tells Google that you do not want to pass page rank which is aka the link juice, voting power, and the link equity of a hyperlink from one page to another.
You are saying here to Google that you do not trust those links.

In the past, Google has said that you should use no follow if it’s a sponsored link, affiliate link, or some link where the money is involved.

Also, comments in most popular CMS like WordPress, Drupal, or Magneto are already Nofollow links by default,
so here, the link does not pass any of the link equity, link juice, or the page rank from one page to another.

Reason Why Google introduced the No-Follow link?

Nofollow link was evolved by Google 15 years ago to counter comment spam because,
at that time comments were followed and passed the page rank and link juice, and so to counter spam,
Google developed a no-follow link to flag advertising or sponsored links. Since then, the web was evolved with the introduction of no follow attributes in the year 2005.

UGC Sponsored Links: Google Announces Two More link Features

Google is announcing two new links features that provide webmasters with extra strategies to spot the Google search that’s the character of the specific links.

So let us check the features of the link attributes UGC and sponsored links one by one

  • rel= “sponsored”:

    These no follow link attributes would identify those links which are created for advertising or sponsorships purposes or other compensation agreements.

    The only reason why sponsored links are being introduced is that google is not good at identifying the paid links. Many people think that Google knows when there is a paid link or sponsored link or sponsored post. It is not very good at it.

    The algorithm is not able to catch enough of them, so it wants you to write it by yourself using the above attribute so that Google can understand what types of links are these?
  • rel= “UGC”:

    UGC is recommended for links with user-generated comments, forum posts. UGC means User Generated Content.

    It would actually recognize those links that look within user-generated articles, like comments and forum articles.

  • Rel=” nofollow”:

    You can use this no-follow attribute in those places where you do not want any endorsement, with passing along ranking credit to another page.

    These are the three-link attributes that Google will use as a hint to identify the types of links it is. Now let me tell you that from 2nd Of March 2020,
    Google will start using a no-follow attribute for indexing and crawling purposes.

    On the other hand, It should be kept in mind that for the time being Nofollow attribute would be taken as a hint for ranking. Right now it would not be used for crawling or indexing purposes.

    It means that the organization would consider the link for credit, and may consider it as part of spam investigation or for additional ranking purposes.

Why is Google not entirely dismissing these links?

To understand this, here is the Google explanation:

According to Google, links are a valuable piece of information that can play a significant role to enhance search engines, for example, how the words within links describe the content they point it.

Inspecting all the links can help Google to understand the pattern of unnatural links.

Thus, these nofollow attributes would help them gather information about unnatural links while allowing site owners to signify that a few links should not be granted the burden of a first-party endorsement.”

Thus, these nofollow attributes would help them gather information about unnatural links while allowing site owners to signify that a few links should not be granted the burden of a first-party endorsement.”

What SEO expert and website owner needs to Change No Follow links?

Links attributes are still vital and act as a vote. It’s beneficial to flag advertisement and sponsored links to avoid possible link scheme penalties. Google adopt the use of “sponsored,” but “no follow” is fine as well.

Must we change current Nofollow link attributes To UGC or Sponsored?

The company has stated that there is no need to change any of your existing links.

Google will continue to give value to those existing no-follow links but for the sponsored content,
Google has asked to switch to the no-follow attribute “sponsored.” That is rel= “sponsored” when appropriate.

Ways To use the UGC Sponsored Nofollow link Attributes Correctly

You can now utilize more than 1 link attribute feature in your single link tag.

You can use these attributes in a single link with rel=”ugc sponsored” or rel=”nofollow ugc.”

The first attribute will give a hint to Google that the link is coming from user-generated content, and the second one will indicate that it is a sponsored.

These changes go into effect

Now These 3 links features, i.e., UGC, sponsored and No Follow — work as of now.

 Sponsored and UGC characteristics are treated as “hints” Nofollow will function the same as consistently up till March 2020, at which time it’ll also be treated as a sign.

Those who were only dependent upon the no-follow feature, which was not recommended, to start with, should strongly consider shifting to one of the new link attributes.

Conclusion on UGC Sponsored NoFollow Attributes:

Google has already declared that there would be no significant effect on the search outcome after the upgrade.

If Google starts giving value to the no-followed links in the major popular sites such as Wikipedia, that used a no-follow link policy, and if Google counts those links, you may see your webpage ranking boost.

For example, we all know that each of the external links on Wikipedia is no-followed when you’ve got links from Wikipedia and thus Google starts counting these links, then you may see your rankings boost for your website or webpage.

If you want to learn more about UGC, sponsored nofollow link attributes you can click here.

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