Google Updates The Nature Of Links – Evolving “nofollow”

Google has rolled out its new nofollow update for a better understanding of the nature of links. Yes along with the “nofollow” attribute, Google has added two more link attributes:

  • rel= “sponsored”
  • rel= “ugc”

How Will This Be Helpful?

Well let’s hear in Google’s own words:

“These will provide webmasters with additional ways to identify to Google Search the nature of particular links.”

A Brief summary of these two links:

  • rel= “sponsored”

    This will help you identify any content which was created as a part of advertisements, sponsorships or any such agreements.

  • rel= “ugc”

    UGC stands for User-Generated Content. It will help Google identify any content generated by the user like comments and forum posts.

    Does this mean “nofollow” is of no use now??

    No, “nofollow” will be used for places where you want to link a page but do not want any endorsements or simply do not want to pass your link juice to that page.

Effect On SEO

Need to change all the link attributes

Don’t panic! You need not change your existing “nofollow” attributes. Google will continue to acknowledge that they are currently placed on your website.

However, it is recommended to use the correct link attribute in the future.

Correct usage of links

Using these attributes correctly will help Google Bots to crawl the correct information. Since earlier links with “nofollow” didn’t provide any signal to the search algorithms. Now, the new update would help Google differentiate between the distinct natures of links.

“– sponsored, UGC and nofollow — are treated as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. We’ll use these hints — along with other signals — as a way to better understand how to appropriately analyze and use links within our systems.”

Future Impact On SEO

Talking about the impact of these new changes in the coming years, I can say it’s going to be very fruitful for your SEO strategies.

The very definition of “nofollow” emphasizes:

  • Not for crawling and indexing.
  • It also means no ranking.

Well, now there are chances that the above scenario will improve. Thus the content present in these “nofollow“ links can be used as a ranking factor for your website on SERPs. So, let’s keep our fingers crossed and see how this Google nofollow update works.

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