Nofollow, sponsored and ugc links: what they mean for you

Every link on the web is a bit of HTML. Most look like this:

<a href="https://yoursite.com">Your site</a>

Some have an extra label tucked inside, called a rel attribute:

<a href="https://yoursite.com" rel="nofollow">Your site</a>

That small word changes how Google treats the link. Here's what each one means and what, if anything, you should do about it.

The four kinds of link

Followed (often called dofollow). No label at all. This is the normal kind. The site is vouching for you, and Google can pass ranking credit through it. There's no actual "dofollow" attribute. It's just the absence of the others.

Nofollow. The site is saying, "I'm linking to this, but don't treat it as my endorsement." Many big sites, like news sites and Wikipedia, add it to every outbound link.

Sponsored. The link was paid for: an ad, an affiliate link, a sponsored post. Google asks sites to mark paid links this way. Nofollow is still accepted for paid links, but sponsored is the preferred label.

Ugc. Short for user-generated content. Links in blog comments, forum posts and profiles that visitors created themselves.

A link can carry more than one, like rel="nofollow ugc".

How Google treats them

Before 2019, nofollow was an order: Google didn't count those links at all.

Then Google changed it to a hint. It said nofollow, sponsored and ugc are all treated as hints about which links to consider or leave out. In practice, most of these links still don't pass ranking credit. But Google keeps the option of using them to understand the web better.

Ahrefs leaves them out of Domain Rating completely. That's why a nofollow link from a big site won't move your DR. More on that in What is Domain Rating?

Why paid links should be sponsored

This is the part that matters if you buy guest posts or sponsored placements.

Google's spam policies say that buying links that pass ranking credit is link spam. The safe way to pay for a link is to have it marked sponsored. You still get the visitors and the brand exposure. You just don't get the ranking credit, and you don't take on the risk.

So if a site offers you a paid post and promises the link will be "dofollow," know what you're buying. I'd rather pay for a sponsored link on a site with real readers than a followed link on a site built to sell them.

Why a site might switch your link to nofollow

Sometimes a link that was followed when you got it turns nofollow months later. It's usually not personal.

• A sitewide policy change. The site decides to nofollow all outbound links, often after an SEO audit or a plugin update.
• The post was marked as sponsored. If any money or freebies changed hands, the site may have labelled it properly after the fact.
• A new editor cleaned up old posts. Common on bigger blogs.
• The link moved into a comment or profile section, which gets ugc by default.

If it was a link you earned, it's fine to ask. Send a short, polite note: you noticed the link changed, and you were wondering if that was on purpose. Sometimes it was a mistake. If it was a policy, let it go.

Are nofollow links worthless?

No. Here's why I still want them.

They bring visitors. A nofollow link from a popular article sends exactly as many readers as a followed one. Readers don't see the label.

They look natural. Real sites get a mix of followed and nofollow links. A profile with only followed links is unusual.

They lead to other links. Someone finds you through a nofollow link on a news story, then writes about you on their blog with a followed one.

What they won't do is move your DR. That's fine. DR isn't the goal. Traffic and good rankings are.

What DR Buddy shows you

In your links table, the Follow column shows each link's label: Dofollow, Nofollow, Sponsored or UGC. We read it straight from the page every time we check.

If a followed link turns nofollow, we check again the next day before we tell you, so a page that briefly broke doesn't raise a false alarm. If it's still nofollow, the link shows up as needing a look on your dashboard.