How Google treats links in paid articles, guest posts and press releases

Google's documentation says it uses links both to find new pages to crawl and as a signal of how relevant a page is.

That is why the way a link is coded matters when coverage is paid for. Google's spam policies and its link documentation set out which links it expects to be labeled, which labels it accepts, and what happens when links are not labeled.

What Google defines as link spam

Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links to or from a site primarily for the purpose of manipulating search rankings. The definition covers links in both directions, so it applies to the site that publishes a link as well as the site that receives it.

The policy lists specific practices. They include buying or selling links for ranking, which covers exchanging money, goods, services or free products for a link. Excessive link exchanges and partner pages built only for cross-linking are also listed.

Automated programs or services that create links are on the list, as are text ads and text links. So is requiring links in terms or contracts without letting third parties qualify them.

The policy also lists low-quality directory and bookmark links, widget links, sitewide footer or template links, and forum posts with optimized links.

Where paid articles, guest posts and press releases fit

One item on the list is directly relevant to media placements. The policy names paid advertorials and native ads that carry links passing ranking credit, and links with optimized anchor text that point to articles, guest posts or press releases on other sites.

The wording is conditional. The policy concerns the links inside such pieces and whether those links pass credit. Links marked rel=\"nofollow\" or rel=\"sponsored\" do not violate it.

Anchor text is the visible words of a link. Google's link documentation says good anchor text is descriptive, reasonably concise and relevant to both the page it sits on and the page it points to. It also says not to force keywords into anchor text, and it describes keyword stuffing as a violation of the spam policies.

The same documentation says linking to other sites, such as citing sources, can build trust.

The three rel values and what each one signals

Google's guidance on qualifying outbound links covers three values for the rel attribute on a link. Each tells Google something different about why the link exists.

The sponsored value is for advertisements and paid placements, which the page calls paid links. Google states a preference for sponsored over nofollow for these links, though nofollow was the earlier recommendation and remains acceptable.

The ugc value is for user-generated content such as comments and forum posts. Google says the attribute can be dropped for trusted members who have consistently contributed high-quality content over a long period.

The nofollow value is a fallback for cases where neither of the others fits. Google describes it as the choice when a site does not want to be associated with the linked page or to have Google crawl that page from the site.

Values can be combined, either separated by spaces or by commas. Google's example is rel="ugc nofollow".

What a marked link does and does not do

Google says links carrying these attributes generally will not be followed. The linked page can still be found and crawled by other routes, such as sitemaps or links from other sites.

The attributes apply to anchor elements that Google can crawl. Google's crawlability guidance says it can generally follow only anchor elements with an href attribute, and that most links in other formats, such as click handlers, won't be parsed. Nofollow is also available as a robots meta tag.

Google's spam policy says buying and selling links for advertising or sponsorship is normal business practice, and such links do not violate the policy if the a element is marked with rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored". A paid placement is therefore permitted under the policy, and the labeling is the condition.

The link guidance also tells publishers to mark paid links as sponsored or nofollow, and to mark user-submitted links as ugc or nofollow. It says nofollow should be used for sources a site does not trust, not for every external link.

How violations are found and what they cost

Google says violations are detected through automated systems and sometimes human review. The outcome can be a manual action.

The policy says affected sites may rank lower in results or not appear in results at all. Continued circumvention can also limit or revoke eligibility for features such as Top Stories and Discover.

Site reputation abuse is a separate policy

Google treats a related practice under a different heading. Site reputation abuse applies when third-party content is hosted on a site mainly to benefit from the host's already-established ranking signals, which come mainly from its first-party content.

Google says third-party content alone is not a violation. Its examples of violations are sponsored payday-loan reviews hosted on an educational site and distributed to other sites, and a low-quality casino page hosted on a medical site that is unrelated to the site's content.

The policy is about hosting rather than links. Google's page, last updated on 2 September 2026, sets different outcomes by region. Outside the European Economic Area, affected pages may receive a manual action in results shown to users there. Within the EEA, affected pages may be treated as separate from the main domain and rank on their own merits, without a manual action.