If anyone ever thought that the positioner’s work is boring … our whole Paraphrase-Online team can ensure that this person is very wrong. On September 10, 2019, we were able to find out about it once again – with the appearance of the Twitter post:

 ” hundreds of hours of consideration, months of preparation, we finally arrived. Https://t.co/dhJJmdal4J “

and a post on the official Google blog – here.

New Link Attributes

After years of reign of rel = “nofollow”, which until now allowed to limit the transfer of power of our domain, Google introduces new ways of marking outbound links – it is rel = “sponsored” and rel = “ugc”.

rel = “sponsored” – attribute of the link that should be marked with links related to the broadly defined advertisement,

rel = “ugc” – attribute of the “user generated content” link, i.e. links created by users on forums, in comments and other places,

rel = “nofollow” – an attribute that can be used in cases not covered by the two previously mentioned, in a situation where you do not want this link to be indexed.

This last point also indicates a change in the perception of links with the attribute rel = “nofollow”. Until now, according to Google, links from nofollow were not included in the search engine algorithm. With the introduction of new attributes, this is about to change and nofollow, sponsored and ugc are to be treated as tips that, along with other factors, will be helpful in determining the page’s ranking.

As Google emphasizes – and we’ve thought the same for a long time and think that “nofollow” has always functioned this way – every link to a page carries information and testifies to its value.

Practical changes

Google answers the most important doubts later in the post – entering new attributes does not require modification of existing links with “nofollow” at this time. However, the post emphasizes that every link that is an ad should have the “sponsored” attribute. There is a risk that the introduced changes may cause turbulence in the websites offering links – depending on how the websites providing the space for links will start to mark their links and of course – how it will look in practice using Google in the attribute hint.

Breaking down the types of links into smaller subgroups will definitely allow Google to analyze the links more accurately and define their value (and legitimacy). The main role here is played in particular by “sponsored”, which will determine whether, for example, the site provides links for a fee.

Far-reaching analysis suggests that “user generated content” can be much more beneficial for the site – especially if they are located in places where a group of enthusiasts and experts discuss, exchanging links to sites they recommend.

It is worth paying attention to one more element of the Google blog entry – in the last paragraphs it reminds you of the possibility to indicate to robots which links coming to our site should be ignored. With the change and perception of “nofollow” as a guide rather than exact guidelines, there is a risk of spammy links. With this in mind, it’s worth scanning your links and considering refreshing your Disavow file. Google gives us time until March 1, 2020 – when will “nofollow” be officially only – or until? – a clue.