Sponsored Links

## Why it matters

Google's link spam policy requires paid links to be marked with rel="sponsored" or nofollow so they don't look like organic editorial endorsements. Get this wrong and you risk manual action: manual penalties can drop rankings or delist a site entirely.

rel="sponsored" is a hint, not a hard blocker. Marking a link sponsored doesn't guarantee it passes zero value. But skipping the tag on known paid links is the compliance risk. You're telling Google and visitors: this link exists because money changed hands, not merit.

## How it works

When you accept payment, a trade, or an affiliate commission for a link, mark it. The process takes minutes:

1. Identify paid or sponsored links: ads you're running, affiliate referrals, sponsored articles, barter deals.
2. Add rel="sponsored" to the <a> tag's rel attribute.
3. Done. Google's crawler sees the tag and treats the link as commercial, not editorial.

Google's definition of "paid" is broad: ads, sponsorships, affiliate links, and any arrangement where you received money, products, or services in exchange. Got paid? Got something of value? Mark it.

The tag splits paid links from nofollow, which flags untrusted content like spam comments. This gives Google clearer intent: nofollow says "I don't vouch for this," sponsored says "this is a paid relationship."

## What does not matter

Marking a link rel="sponsored" does not guarantee zero ranking value to the destination. Google may still crawl and pass signal if the destination looks relevant and trustworthy. The tag is about disclosure and classification, not blocking rank flow.

You can combine rel="sponsored" with rel="nofollow" if you want: rel="sponsored nofollow". Google says sponsored alone is enough; the extra nofollow is belt-and-suspenders. Sponsored does the job.

## Code example

Here's how to mark affiliate and sponsored links correctly:

<!-- Bad: affiliate link with no rel attribute (compliance risk) -->
<a href="https://affiliate.example.com/product?ref=mysite">
  My favorite coffee maker
</a>

<!-- Good: affiliate link with rel="sponsored" -->
<a href="https://affiliate.example.com/product?ref=mysite" rel="sponsored">
  My favorite coffee maker
</a>

<!-- Also good: combining sponsored with nofollow for extra caution -->
<a href="https://ad-network.example.com/banner" rel="sponsored nofollow">
  Sponsored article
</a>
Copy

If you manage ads or affiliate links programmatically:

// Mark all affiliate links in a product recommendation section
const affiliateLinks = document.querySelectorAll('.affiliate-section a[href*="affiliate.example.com"]');
affiliateLinks.forEach(link => {
  link.setAttribute('rel', 'sponsored');
});

// Check that no sponsored links are missing the tag
const allExternalLinks = document.querySelectorAll('a[href^="http"]');
allExternalLinks.forEach(link => {
  const href = link.getAttribute('href');
  if (href.includes('affiliate') && !link.getAttribute('rel')?.includes('sponsored')) {
    console.warn('Affiliate link missing rel="sponsored":', href);
  }
});
Copy

This second script audits your page to flag affiliate links that don't have the sponsored tag. Run it to catch missing disclosures before publishing.

## How Scalpel shows it

The Links tab identifies and displays all sponsored links on the page, separating them from nofollow and ugc links. For each sponsored link, it shows the destination URL, anchor text, and rel attribute. Scalpel flags sponsored links that also have nofollow (not wrong, just redundant) and warns if external links that look like ads or affiliates (keyword clues in the URL, known ad network domains) are missing the sponsored tag entirely. This is a quick audit to catch compliance gaps.