What is rel=sponsored?
rel=sponsored is a value of the HTML rel attribute that marks a link as paid or otherwise compensated. A publisher that runs a paid product placement adds it to the link like this:
<a href="https://brand.example.com" rel="sponsored">Brand</a>To a reader, a link marked rel=sponsored looks and works like any other link. The value is aimed at search engines: it says the link exists because of a commercial arrangement, not because the publisher chose to vouch for the destination. Google's own guidance is to mark "links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links)" with the sponsored value [1].
rel=sponsored is one of three link qualifiers Google recognizes, alongside nofollow and ugc. The nofollow link entry covers all three together. This entry goes deeper on sponsored alone: when it applies, how search engines treat it, and what it does and does not do for a site that buys or sells placements.
When should you use rel=sponsored?
Use rel=sponsored on any link that exists because someone was compensated for it, whether with money, goods or services. Google's spam policies list the arrangements that count as paid links, and they reach well past cash [2]:
- Ads and paid placements: banner ads, sponsored posts, advertorials and native advertising with links.
- Affiliate links: Google's Danny Sullivan said in 2019 that paid links and affiliate links are fine as long as they are qualified [3].
- Gifted products: "sending someone a product in exchange for them writing about it and including a link" is a paid link under Google's spam policies [2].
- Goods or services in exchange for links: any trade where a link is part of the deal [2].
- Sponsorships: Google's 2019 announcement covered "advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements" [4].
Google's link guidance repeats the rule plainly: "If you were paid in some way for the link," mark it sponsored or nofollow [9]. The test is the arrangement, not the format. A link inside a sponsored article, a sponsored listicle or a paid review all qualify.
Is rel=sponsored required for paid links?
No. rel=sponsored is Google's preferred value for paid links, but rel=nofollow is still accepted. Google's documentation says nofollow was previously recommended for paid links and remains acceptable [1], and its spam policies say paid links are not a violation "as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value" [2].
What is required is that a paid link carries one of the two. A paid link with no qualifier at all is link spam under Google's policies, and sites that violate those policies "may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all" [2]. Google's Danny Sullivan said at launch that "you don't have to change anything if you don't want," and that Google was "not focused on driving adoption" of the new values [3].
How does Google treat rel=sponsored links?
Google treats rel=sponsored as a hint, not a command. Since September 10, 2019, Google may choose to consider a sponsored link when ranking pages, and since March 1, 2020, it may choose to crawl and index the destination too [3][4].
Google has not published how often it uses the hint, or what makes it count a sponsored link. No outside study can measure that directly. The practical reading is that a sponsored link is not designed to pass ranking value, and any value it does pass is at Google's discretion and invisible to everyone else.
Is rel=sponsored the same as an ad disclosure?
No. rel=sponsored is a machine-readable label for search engines, while an ad disclosure is a visible label for readers. The attribute sits in the page's code. A reader never sees it, so it cannot tell anyone that a placement was paid.
This is the most common mix-up around the value, and it runs in both directions:
| rel=sponsored | Visible disclosure ("Sponsored", "Paid partnership", "Ad") | |
|---|---|---|
| Who reads it | Search engines | People |
| Where it lives | Inside the link's HTML | In the page text, byline or label |
| What it satisfies | Google's and Bing's link guidelines | Reader trust and advertising disclosure rules where they apply |
| Covers | One link | The whole piece of content |
A paid article can carry a visible "Sponsored" label and still break Google's link rules if its links are unqualified. A paid article can carry rel=sponsored on every link and still mislead readers if nothing on the page says it was paid. A compliant paid placement needs both. Search Insider covers the reader side in paid link disclosure.
Can you combine rel=sponsored with other values?
Yes. Google accepts more than one value in the same rel attribute, separated by spaces or commas [1]:
<a href="https://brand.example.com" rel="sponsored nofollow">Brand</a>
<a href="https://brand.example.com" rel="sponsored,nofollow">Brand</a>Google confirmed at launch that the values can be "combined if you want" [3], and the combination rel="ugc sponsored" fits a paid link that a user posted, such as a sponsored forum post [4].
Adding nofollow next to sponsored is a sensible belt-and-braces choice. A search engine or crawler that does not recognize sponsored still reads nofollow, which major search engines have supported for well over a decade.
Does Bing support rel=sponsored?
Yes. Bing added support for rel=sponsored and rel=ugc in 2020 and treats both as "hints, not necessarily directives" [5]. A Bing spokesperson said at the time that the new values were "not as strong of a signal for Bing" as nofollow, and that this could change with adoption [5]. Bing's webmaster guidelines ask sites to make "a reasonable effort" to mark paid or advertisement links with nofollow, sponsored or ugc [5].
How many websites use rel=sponsored?
Very few. HTTP Archive's 2024 Web Almanac found sponsored on 0.4% of desktop and mobile sites, against 32.4% (desktop) and 32.7% (mobile) for nofollow [6]. Five years after launch, nofollow is used on roughly 80 times as many sites as sponsored.
Looking at links rather than sites, Ahrefs found in 2020 that rel=sponsored appeared on only 0.008% of the backlinks pointing at the top 110,000 websites, from 0.01% of referring domains [7]. Most of that early use came from WordPress sites through plugins [7].
The low numbers do not mean paid links go unqualified. Most publishers that qualify paid links simply kept using nofollow, which Google still accepts [1].
When did Google introduce rel=sponsored?
Google introduced rel=sponsored on September 10, 2019, alongside rel=ugc [4]. The value grew out of fourteen years of Google using nofollow as the single answer to paid links, comment spam and untrusted links at once.
2005: nofollow does every job
Google introduced nofollow in 2005 to fight blog comment spam [4]. Over the following years Google also asked sites to use nofollow on paid links, so one value carried several meanings [1]: "I don't trust this", "a user posted this" and "someone paid for this".
2013: advertorials named as a link scheme
In July 2013, Google added "advertorials or native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links that pass PageRank" to its link schemes examples [8]. Paid articles became an explicit compliance issue, with nofollow as the fix.
2019: a value just for paid links
On September 10, 2019, Google announced rel="sponsored" for "links that are advertisements, sponsorships or other compensation agreements" [4]. At the same time, Google turned all three values into hints for ranking and said existing nofollow links did not need changing [3].
2020: crawling hint and Bing support
From March 1, 2020, Google extended the hint model to crawling and indexing [3]. Bing announced its own support for sponsored and ugc in 2020, as a weaker signal than nofollow [5].
2024: still a niche value
The 2024 Web Almanac measured sponsored on 0.4% of sites [6]. Google still lists it as the preferred value for paid links [1], and still accepts nofollow in its place.
What is the difference between rel=sponsored and nofollow?
rel=sponsored says why a link is not an endorsement (it was paid for), while nofollow only says the publisher does not vouch for it. Both are hints to Google, and both make a paid link compliant [1][2].
| rel=sponsored | rel=nofollow | |
|---|---|---|
| Meaning | This link is compensated | Don't treat this link as an endorsement |
| Introduced | 2019 | 2005 |
| Accepted for paid links | Yes (preferred) | Yes |
| Accepted for unpaid, untrusted links | No, it would mislabel them | Yes |
| Recognized by older crawlers | Not always | Yes |
| Share of sites using it (2024) | 0.4% | 32.7% (mobile) |
Use sponsored when the link is paid. Use nofollow when the link is not paid but you still don't want to vouch for it. Use both together when you want the extra detail and the widest compatibility.
Do rel=sponsored links help SEO?
rel=sponsored links help SEO through referral traffic and visibility, not reliably through ranking value. Google may use a sponsored link as a hint, but there is no published way to know when it does [3].
For a buyer, the honest reading is this: a placement that is marked sponsored is compliant, and a followed placement that should be marked sponsored carries risk for both sites under Google's link spam policy [2]. When vetting a paid placement, check the live link's rel attribute yourself (right-click the link, choose Inspect) rather than relying on a description of it. If the arrangement is paid, a followed link is not a feature to pay extra for.
What should you do about rel=sponsored on your own site?
Audit outbound links that carry any commercial arrangement and make sure each has sponsored, nofollow or both [1]. In practice:
- Affiliate links: add
sponsoredthrough your affiliate plugin or link manager, which most now support. - Sponsored posts and advertorials: add
sponsoredto every link to the sponsor, not just the first one, and add a visible label for readers. - Gifted products and reviews: treat the product as compensation and qualify the links [2].
- Existing nofollow paid links: leave them. Google does not require a change [3].
- Ordinary editorial links: do not add sponsored. Mislabeling unpaid links tells Google something false about them.
Search Insider does not support or suggest using private blog networks, and no rel value makes an unqualified paid link scheme acceptable. The rule is simple: if money, goods or services changed hands for the link, qualify it.