Tuesday, September 10, 2019<\/p>\n
\n Nearly 15 years ago, the \n Today, we’re announcing two new link attributes that provide webmasters with additional ways \n When nofollow was introduced, Google would not count any link marked this way as a signal to use \n Why not completely ignore such links, as had been the case with \n We know these new attributes will generate questions, so here’s an FAQ that we hope covers most of \n No. If you use \n Yes, you can use more than one \n No. You can keep using \n Yes. If you want to avoid a possible link \n There’s no wrong attribute except in the case of sponsored links. If you flag a UGC link or a \n It is an issue going the opposite way. Any link that is clearly an ad or sponsored should use \n Using the new attributes allows us to better process links for analysis of the web. That can \n Many sites that allow third-parties to contribute to content already deter link spam in a variety \n All the link attributes, nofollow<\/code>
\n attribute<\/a> was introduced<\/a>
\n as a means to help fight comment spam. It also quickly became one of Google’s
\n recommended methods<\/a>
\n for flagging advertising-related or sponsored links. The web has evolved since nofollow was
\n introduced in 2005 and it’s time for nofollow to evolve as well.<\/p>\n
\n to identify to Google Search the nature of particular links. These, along with
\n nofollow<\/code>, are summarized below:\n<\/p>\n\n
rel=\"sponsored\"<\/code>:<\/b> Use the sponsored attribute to identify links on your site
\n that were created as part of advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements.\n <\/li>\nrel=\"ugc\"<\/code>:<\/b> UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc<\/code>
\n attribute value is recommended for links within user generated content, such as comments and
\n forum posts.\n <\/li>\nrel=\"nofollow\"<\/code>:<\/b> Use this attribute for cases where you want to link to a
\n page but don’t want to imply any type of endorsement, including passing along ranking credit to
\n another page.\n <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
\n within our
\n search algorithms<\/a>.
\n This has now changed. All the link attributes—sponsored<\/code>, ugc<\/code>, and
\n nofollow<\/code>—are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within
\n Search. We’ll use these hints—along with other signals—as a way to better understand
\n how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.\n<\/p>\nnofollow<\/code>? Links
\n contain valuable information that can help us improve search, such as how the words within links
\n describe content they point at. Looking at all the links we encounter can also help us better
\n understand unnatural linking patterns. By shifting to a hint model, we no longer lose this
\n important information, while still allowing site owners to indicate that some links shouldn’t be
\n given the weight of a first-party endorsement.\n<\/p>\n
\n those.\n<\/p>\nDo I need to change my existing nofollows?<\/h2>\n
nofollow<\/code> now as a way to block sponsored links, or to signify that you
\n don’t vouch for a page you link to, that will continue to be supported. There’s absolutely no need
\n to change any nofollow<\/code> links that you already have.\n<\/p>\nCan I use more than one
rel<\/code> value on a link?<\/h2>\nrel<\/code> value on a link. For example,
\n rel=\"ugc sponsored\"<\/code> is a perfectly valid attribute which hints that the link came
\n from user-generated content and is sponsored. It’s also valid to use nofollow<\/code> with
\n the new attributes—such as rel=\"nofollow ugc\"<\/code>—if you wish to be
\n backwards-compatible with services that don’t support the new attributes.\n<\/p>\nIf I use
nofollow<\/code> for ads or sponsored links, do I need to change those?<\/h2>\nnofollow<\/code> as a
\n method<\/a>
\n for flagging such links to avoid possible link scheme penalties. You don’t need to change any
\n existing markup. If you have systems that append this to new links, they can continue to do so.
\n However, we recommend switching over to rel=\"sponsored\"<\/code> if or when it is convenient.\n<\/p>\nDo I still need to flag ad or sponsored links?<\/h2>\n
\n scheme action<\/a>, use rel=\"sponsored\"<\/code> ou rel=\"nofollow\"<\/code> to flag these
\n links. We prefer the use of sponsored<\/code>, but either is fine and will be treated the
\n same, for this purpose.\n<\/p>\nWhat happens if I use the wrong attribute on a link?<\/h2>\n
\n non-ad link as sponsored<\/code>, we’ll see that hint but the impact—if any at
\n all—would be at most that we might not count the link as a credit for another page. In this
\n regard, it’s no different than the status quo of many UGC and non-ad links already marked as
\n nofollow<\/code>.\n<\/p>\n
\n sponsored<\/code> ou nofollow<\/code>, as described above. Using sponsored<\/code>
\n is preferred, but nofollow<\/code> is acceptable.\n<\/p>\nWhy should I bother using any of these new attributes?<\/h2>\n
\n include your own content, if people who link to you make use of these attributes.\n<\/p>\nWon’t changing to a “hint” approach encourage link spam in comments and UGC content?<\/h2>\n
\n of ways, including moderation tools that can be integrated into many blogging platforms and human
\n review. The link attributes of ugc<\/code> and nofollow<\/code> will continue to be a
\n further deterrent. In most cases, the move to a hint model won’t change the nature of how we treat
\n such links. We’ll generally treat them as we did with nofollow<\/code> before and not
\n consider them for ranking purposes. We will still continue to carefully assess how to use links
\n within Search, just as we always have and as we’ve had to do for situations where no attributions
\n were provided.\n<\/p>\nWhen do these attributes and changes go into effect?<\/h2>\n
sponsored<\/code>, ugc<\/code>, and nofollow<\/code>, now
\n work today as hints for us to incorporate for ranking purposes. For crawling and indexing
\n purposes, nofollow<\/code> will become a hint as of March 1, 2020. Those depending on
\n nofollow solely to block a page from being indexed (which was never recommended) should use one of
\n the much more robust mechanisms listed on our
\n Learn how to block URLs from Google<\/a>
\n help page.\n<\/p>\n