Key takeaways
- Mark every link that can pay you with rel="sponsored"; nofollow is still acceptable, but Google now prefers sponsored.
- Multiple rel values on one anchor are valid, so rel="sponsored nofollow" is a legitimate choice.
- A redirect is not automatically cloaking — Google's test is whether the redirect is intended to deceive people or search engines.
- Your affiliate program has its own rulebook; Amazon requires links to properly use its tagged formats, so check that any redirect keeps the tag.
- Marking links is a compliance job, not a ranking trick: copied merchant copy is still a thin affiliate page.
- Before you buy another tool: run the 30-minute action plan below — it uses tools you already have.
What rel sponsored affiliate links are (and why Google asks for the tag)
rel sponsored affiliate links are affiliate links that carry a tiny machine-readable label called rel="sponsored". Google's documentation says to use sponsored for advertisements and paid placements, and that nofollow, the old default, is still acceptable but no longer preferred [1]. That's the whole rule.
If that sounds like something you should have sorted months ago and didn't, you're where most beginners are. Some plugins offer link cloaking or redirect features, the articles you've read contradict each other, and almost nobody explains what the attribute actually does. So here's the plain-English version.
In plain terms: every link on your page has a hidden field where you can tell Google your relationship with the page you're linking to [1]. For an ordinary editorial link — a study you're citing, a definition you're referencing — you don't need any label at all [1]. For a link that pays you, Google wants it qualified.
The outbound-link guidance is dated: Google's page shows a last-updated stamp of 10 December 2025 UTC [1]. That matters because a lot of advice still circulating was written when nofollow was the recommendation, and is now describing the second-best option [1].
What actually happens when you add the attribute
Less than you'd think. Links carrying these values generally won't be followed by Google, though the linked page can still be discovered through sitemaps or links from other sites [1]. What you gain is a clean, machine-readable statement that you're not trying to pass ranking credit through a commercial relationship.
What you don't gain is a penalty. Google's spam policy treats buying and selling links for ranking purposes as link spam, but says plainly that such links are not a violation when they're qualified with nofollow or sponsored [2]. Marking is the thing that keeps you on the right side of that line.
How to add rel="sponsored" to affiliate links: four steps
This is a mechanical job. Do it once, properly, and you can stop thinking about it.
Step 1 — list every link that can pay you
Open your site and search each published page for the identifiers your programs gave you: your network's tracking domain, your Amazon tag, your own redirect path if you use one. Put them in a spreadsheet with the page URL and the anchor text. Work through the pages systematically, and check for links you'd forgotten existed.
Step 2 — put the label on the link, not on the URL
Put the label on the link itself—not in the URL. Depending on your editor, you may be able to set rel directly; in others you'll need to edit the HTML or use a plugin. Check your own editor before assuming a rel field exists. If you prefer code, here's the same link before and after the label:
Before (missing rel): <a href="https://example.com/product">product name</a>
After (correct): <a href="https://example.com/product" rel="sponsored">product name</a>
Most editors won't show you this unless you inspect the page, but the inspection step in Step 4 confirms it.
Step 3 — decide whether to add nofollow as well
You can use both values together. In the same box, type sponsored nofollow (separated by a space) or sponsored,nofollow—both are valid [1]. If you'd rather keep it simple, just sponsored alone is Google's preferred label [1].
Step 4 — check the page the way a stranger would
Open your page in a private browser window, hover over your affiliate link, right-click and choose "Inspect" or "View page source"—or use your browser's developer tools. The important part: look for the word "sponsored" on the link itself, not just in your editor preview. Check one page after publishing in case your editor altered the link. If you can't find the word, the label may not have been saved.
Here's what the two versions look like in the page source.
Incorrect (no rel): <a href="https://example.com/product">Product name</a>
Correct (rel="sponsored"): <a href="https://example.com/product" rel="sponsored">Product name</a>
If a plugin is doing the rewriting for you, test one page on each template you use. It's faster than assuming.
sponsored, nofollow or ugc? A decision table
Most of the confusion comes from treating these three values as interchangeable. They aren't — each describes a different relationship between your page and the page you're linking to [1].
| Your situation | Value to use | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Reader clicks, buys, and you earn a commission | rel="sponsored" or rel="sponsored nofollow" | It's a paid placement, and sponsored is Google's preferred label for paid links [1] |
| A brand sent you a free product in exchange for a post with a link | rel="sponsored" | Exchanging goods for links counts as link spam unless the link is qualified [2] |
| You're linking to a primary source you don't profit from | No rel value needed | Unqualified links are for pages you expect Google to fetch and parse normally [1] |
| A reader leaves a link in your comments | rel="ugc" | Google's marker for user-generated content [1] |
| A link you don't want to be associated with at all | rel="nofollow" | Use nofollow when the other values don't apply [1] |
| A paid guest article or sponsored post published on your site | rel="sponsored" | It's an advertisement or paid placement [1] |
The row people skip is the second one. If a brand sends you a product in exchange for writing about it and including a link, Google's spam policy lists that pattern under link spam — and then says explicitly that qualifying the link with nofollow or sponsored takes it out of the violation category [2]. The fix is the one you're already doing.
Does link cloaking break Google's rules?
Short answer: cloaking isn't automatically a problem, and it isn't automatically safe either. Google's test is whether a redirect is intended to deceive people or search engines [2]. What people commonly call "cloaking"—showing one version of a page to search engines and a different one to humans—is a separate issue from the simple affiliate redirect. Google's spam policy addresses sneaky redirects when they're meant to mislead [2].
Two different things get called "cloaking". Link cloaking, in the affiliate sense, means a redirect from a tidy URL on your own domain (like yoursite.com/go/product) to the merchant's URL. What people commonly call "cloaking" in SEO is showing one thing to Google and another to readers. The first is a harmless redirect. The second is the kind of behavior Google's spam policy addresses when the redirect is meant to mislead [2].
What Google's redirect guidance actually asks you
Google frames it as a question of intent: when examining whether a redirect is sneaky, consider whether it's intended to deceive users or search engines [2]. The same page lists obviously legitimate examples — moving your site to a new address, consolidating several pages into one, redirecting users to an internal page after they log in [2].
Our reading, and we'll flag it as a reading rather than a quotation: a plain redirect that lands a reader on the product page they expected isn't hiding anything. The risk rises when the destination changes depending on who's asking, when the redirect disguises what's actually being linked, or when a plugin quietly strips the tracking parameters your program requires.
The detail that trips people up more often than rel
If you cloak, remember that Google can only see the label if it's on a normal link that it can crawl [1]. If your plugin makes the link appear only when someone clicks, Google might never see the label. Publish a normal link (with your redirect URL) and set the rel field to sponsored, and your side of the marking job is done — whatever the plugin does behind the scenes.
Also worth noting: none of this is a get-out clause for disclosure. Affiliate disclosure is a separate question from link markup. Check the FTC's current guidance directly rather than relying on any blog, ours included. The attribute is a signal to a search engine [1]; a disclosure is a statement to a human being.
Where cloaking and marking really bite: your program's terms
Google's rules and your affiliate program's rules are separate rulebooks, and passing one doesn't mean you pass the other.
What an affiliate agreement says about your links
Amazon's Associates Program Operating Agreement, in the version updated 15 October 2025, says links must properly use the special "tagged" link formats Amazon provides and comply with the agreement [3]. That's the sentence that matters for cloaking: whatever your plugin does to the URL, the tagged format has to survive intact. On our reading of [3], a redirect that strips or rewrites the tag would no longer meet the requirement that links properly use Amazon's tagged formats.
Amazon is one example, not the whole picture. Every network and merchant has its own wording about link modification and redirects. Our guide to the clauses to read in an affiliate program's terms before you join covers the ones that come up most, and the Amazon Associates rules beginners break most often goes through Amazon specifically.
Disclosure is a legal question, not an SEO one
Nothing in Google's rel documentation addresses disclosure to your readers; that is a separate question. Our FTC affiliate disclosure examples for blogs, email and video has wording you can adapt — and because expectations shift, check the FTC's current guidance directly rather than relying on any blog, ours included.
Marking won't rescue a thin page
Google's spam policy defines thin affiliation as publishing affiliate content where product descriptions and reviews are copied straight from the merchant with no original content or added value [2]. It also describes what good affiliate pages look like: price information, original reviews, genuine evaluation, product comparisons and navigation [2]. A perfectly tagged link on a copied page is still a copied page. If that's where you are, start with what Google's helpful-content guidance means for small affiliate sites.
A pre-publish checklist for marking affiliate links
Copy this into your notes app or print it. It's deliberately short, because a long checklist doesn't get run.
- ☐ Every link that can earn me money carries
rel="sponsored"(orrel="sponsored nofollow") on the anchor. - ☐ No affiliate link is left unmarked "because it's only a small one".
- ☐ Anchor text describes the product or page — not "click here", not a bare URL.
- ☐ Recommended: A plain-language disclosure appears before the first affiliate link. Check the current FTC guidance yourself to confirm what disclosure applies to your situation.
- ☐ Every redirect has been clicked in a logged-out browser, and it lands on the exact page I promised.
- ☐ The redirect preserves the tracking tag my program requires [3].
- ☐ The page contains at least one thing the merchant page doesn't: a comparison, a price note, a limitation, a reason to pick one model over another [2].
- ☐ The page shows a date, and I know when I last re-checked the program's terms.
Two items on that list do the heavy lifting. The first keeps you compliant with Google's outbound-link guidance [1]. The seventh reflects Google's guidance on thin affiliate pages and the value a good one adds [2] — and no attribute on an anchor tag can make up for missing value.
✅ Get the free affiliate marketing checklist — It walks through the order to set up a page (disclosure, links, marking, value) so nothing gets bolted on later. Get the free affiliate marketing checklist
30-minute starter action plan for a pre-launch site
If you haven't published much yet, do this now, before you buy any additional tools:
- Minutes 0–5: Grab a spreadsheet. List every page you plan to publish and every link it will contain (even if the page is still in draft).
- Minutes 5–10: For each link that can earn you money, write the anchor text and the rel value you'll use:
rel="sponsored"orrel="sponsored nofollow". - Minutes 10–15: In your page editor or plugin settings, set the rel value on each anchor. If you're using a plugin that adds rel automatically, turn that feature on and note the setting.
- Minutes 15–20: Publish or update one test page, then check the link as described in Step 4 above. Search for your link and confirm the word "sponsored" appears on the link itself, not in a script.
- Minutes 20–25: Add a plain-language disclosure before the first affiliate link on that page. Keep a copy of the disclosure text in your notes for the next page.
- Minutes 25–30: Save the checklist above. Pick a recurring reminder (e.g., the first of each month) to re-check your program's terms and Google's outbound-link page [1][3].
This plan assumes you're using a basic editor or a free plugin. You don't need to buy a cloaking tool today; that money is better saved for the hosting or funnel builder you've already budgeted for.
Once the marking job is done and the checklist is saved, the next question many beginners ask is "which funnel builder or host should I actually buy?" That's a separate decision, and our main site's tool comparisons walk through the options — but for now, the compliance piece is finished.
Worked example: marking five links on one buying guide
Here's how a single buying-guide page looks once it's finished. The page is fictional; the structure is what you copy. You'll use your own links, but the rel values are the same.
| Link on the page | What it does | Rel value | How to set it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Comparison table to merchant product A | Earns a commission | sponsored | In your link editor, set rel to sponsored (or choose it from a dropdown) |
| "Read the manufacturer's spec sheet" | No money involved | none | Leave the rel field blank |
| A reader's comment recommending a brand | User-generated content | ugc | Set rel to ugc |
| A brand that paid for sidebar placement | Paid placement | sponsored | Set rel to sponsored |
| Cloaked redirect to merchant product B | Earns a commission | sponsored | Same as raw link: set rel to sponsored; the redirect URL goes in the link field, not the label |
Notice that the cloaked link gets the same treatment as the raw one. Whether your link points straight at the merchant or at your own redirect, the label goes on the link itself—not in the URL—because Google can only read the label from a normal link it can crawl [1].
What marking does and doesn't change about the money
Illustrative example, not typical earnings. Suppose a reader buys a $60 accessory through one of those links and your program pays a 5% commission. If the sale completes and isn't returned, the arithmetic is $60 × 0.05 = $3.00. Nothing in that sum changes because of the rel value: the commission follows the tagged link format your program requires [3], while the attribute tells Google about the relationship [1]. Marking links is a compliance task, not an earning task — which is precisely why it should take you an afternoon and then stay done.
Keeping this current: what to re-check, and when
Two of the three documents behind this article carry dates you can verify, which is the point. Google's outbound-link page states it was last updated 10 December 2025 UTC [1]. Amazon's operating agreement states it was updated 15 October 2025 [3]. Neither date is a promise about tomorrow.
A routine that takes ten minutes a quarter:
- Open Google's outbound-link documentation and skim the list of rel values [1].
- Before publishing for a new program, read that program's current terms page in full — not a summary of it, and not this article [3].
- After any plugin or page-builder update, republish one page and inspect the link settings rather than the dashboard.
- Re-check any money-related question with a qualified professional: tax treatment of affiliate income is not something a search-engine doc will answer for you. Our plain-English starting point on affiliate income and US taxes tells you what to gather before that conversation.
One honesty note, since it's fair to ask. This page contains no affiliate links, and the order of Google's rules and your program's rules doesn't change depending on what anyone earns from your clicks. Where we're giving an interpretation rather than a quotation — as with the cloaking section above — we say so. Whichever editor you use, confirm by viewing the page source after saving.
If you want the wider picture of how link qualification fits into affiliate SEO overall, our main site has a walkthrough on SEO for affiliate marketing that puts this article in context.
Get the marking job done once, then get back to writing
The checklist above works best when it's part of a publishing routine rather than a rescue mission. Our free affiliate marketing checklist walks through the order to set up a page — disclosure, links, marking, value — so nothing gets bolted on later.
Frequently asked questions
Do affiliate links need rel="sponsored", or is nofollow still enough?
Google's documentation says nofollow was previously the recommended value for paid links and is still an acceptable way to flag them, but that sponsored is now preferred [1]. In practice either one qualifies the link. If you're starting fresh, use sponsored. If your site already carries nofollow across hundreds of links, that's a valid setup — migrate gradually rather than rebuilding everything this weekend.
Will marking my affiliate links as sponsored hurt my rankings?
Google doesn't describe rel values as a ranking penalty — they tell Google about your relationship with the linked page and such links generally aren't followed [1]. We're not aware of any Google statement that marking itself demotes a page; thin, copied content is the documented problem [2]. Our reading: marking is a compliance action, not a ranking lever.
Is link cloaking against Google's rules?
Not by itself. Google's guidance on sneaky redirects asks whether a redirect is intended to deceive users or search engines, and lists clearly legitimate examples such as moving a site to a new address or consolidating pages [2]. A straightforward redirect to the merchant page a reader expects is a different thing from switching destination by device or hiding what's being linked. Check the current page and your program's terms [3].
Can one link have more than one rel value?
Yes. Google allows multiple rel values on the same anchor, written as a space-separated or comma-separated list, so rel="sponsored nofollow" and rel="sponsored,nofollow" are both valid [1]. Using both is common during a migration.
Do I need rel="sponsored" on links to my own pages?
No. The rel values Google documents are for outbound links; for links within your own site, Google points site owners to the robots.txt disallow rule instead [1]. Internal links are how you signal which of your pages matter, so leave them unqualified and spend the effort on structure rather than attributes.
Sources
- Qualify Outbound Links for SEO | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers (source page, retrieved 2026-10-29)
- Spam Policies for Google Web Search | Google Search Central | Documentation | Google for Developers (source page, retrieved 2026-10-20)
- Amazon.com Associates Central - Associates Program Operating Agreement (source page, retrieved 2026-10-20)
This guide is general education, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules and program terms change; check the linked official pages for the current version and ask a qualified professional about your situation. How we write: editorial policy. This page has no affiliate links.
