Sponsored Posts: How Paid Articles and rel="sponsored" Work

A sponsored post is an article that a publisher runs on its site in exchange for payment, usually written by or for the brand paying for it and usually including a link back to that brand. Under Google's rules, any link in a sponsored post should carry rel="sponsored" (or rel="nofollow") so it doesn't pass ranking credit.

That last part is where most of the confusion sits. Paying for coverage is legitimate advertising. Paying for a link that passes ranking credit, without labelling it, is what Google's spam policies prohibit.

What Google's policy says about sponsored posts

Google's spam policies define link spam as creating links primarily to manipulate search rankings. Among the examples, they list buying or selling links for ranking purposes, including "exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links", and advertorials or native advertising "where payment is received for articles that include links that pass ranking credit".

The same policy is explicit that paid links themselves are fine when they're labelled. Google says it isn't a violation "as long as they are qualified with a rel="nofollow" or rel="sponsored" attribute value", and acknowledges that buying and selling links is a normal part of the web's advertising economy.

So the rule is simple to state:

Sponsored post with...	Allowed by Google's policy?	What the link does
rel="sponsored" on the link	Yes	Sends traffic and visibility; not expected to pass ranking credit
rel="nofollow" on the link	Yes (still acceptable, but sponsored is preferred)	Same as above
rel="sponsored nofollow"	Yes (values can be combined)	Same as above
No rel attribute	No, it's a paid link passing ranking credit	Risks being ignored or a manual action

How rel="sponsored" works

Google introduced rel="sponsored" in September 2019, alongside rel="ugc" for user-generated content. Its documentation says to mark "links that are advertisements or paid placements (commonly called paid links)" with the sponsored value.

A few details worth knowing:

• Nofollow is still acceptable for paid links, but Google's documentation says sponsored is preferred
• Values can be combined, as a space or comma separated list, such as rel="sponsored nofollow"
• They're hints. Since 2019 and 2020 Google has treated nofollow, sponsored and ugc as hints rather than strict directives, so labelled links are "generally not followed" rather than guaranteed to be ignored
• It applies to affiliate links too. Any link that exists because of payment counts as a paid link

The dofollow vs nofollow guide compares all the rel values side by side.

Sponsored posts vs guest posts vs niche edits

The terms get blurred in the link selling market, so it helps to separate them by what's actually happening.

Type	Who writes it	Is money involved?	What Google expects
Sponsored post	Brand or publisher	Yes, paid to the publisher	Label the links sponsored or nofollow
Guest post (editorial)	The guest author	No	Normal editorial link, but avoid optimised anchors
"Paid guest post"	The buyer or a writer	Yes	It's a paid link, so the same rule as sponsored posts
Niche edit	Link added to an existing article	Usually yes	Same rule if paid

Google's link spam examples specifically mention "links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts, or press releases distributed on other sites". Calling a paid placement a guest post or a niche edit doesn't change how the policy treats it.

The grey area most of the market operates in

It's worth being plain about this. Plenty of link sellers offer placements described as guest posts or sponsored posts with followed links and no sponsored label, because that's what buyers want.

That doesn't make it compliant. The risks are that Google's systems simply neutralise the links (its SpamBrain system was used from the December 2022 link spam update to detect sites buying links and sites passing outgoing links), or, in more blatant cases, a manual action. Whether to take that risk is a business decision, and the buying backlinks guide covers how to vet sites if you do. The link schemes page covers what Google penalises in more detail.

When labelled sponsored posts are worth buying

A properly labelled sponsored post won't be expected to pass ranking credit, but that doesn't make it worthless.

• Audience. A post on a site your customers actually read can drive sales and sign-ups directly
• Brand visibility. Being named on respected sites feeds the brand mentions that AI assistants use when they recommend companies
• Credibility. "As featured in" placements help with trust on sales pages
• Hints, not rules. Google treats the attribute as a hint, though it's unwise to buy on the hope of ranking credit

Judge a labelled sponsored post the way you'd judge any advert: by the audience and the cost per real visitor or lead. For typical pricing across link types, see link building cost.

Before you pay for a sponsored post, check

Check	Why
Real organic traffic to the site	Proves Google trusts it and readers find it
Audience matches your customers	Without this, there's no point even with a link
Other sponsored content is clearly labelled	A sign the publisher runs a clean operation
How many paid posts it publishes	A site that's mostly paid posts is a link farm in disguise
Whether it will add rel="sponsored"	Confirms where you stand with Google's policy
Ad disclosure on the post	Advertising rules in many countries require paid content to be labelled for readers

The short version

• A sponsored post is an article a publisher runs in exchange for payment, usually with a link to the brand
• Google allows paid links as long as they carry rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow", and prefers sponsored
• A paid placement with a followed, unlabelled link breaks Google's spam policy whatever it's called
• The rel values are hints, but don't buy labelled posts expecting ranking credit
• Labelled sponsored posts are worth buying for audience, brand mentions and credibility, judged like any other advert

For how sponsored posts compare with every other tactic, see the strategies hub.