Rel UGC is a link attribute, written rel="ugc", that tells search engines a link was added by a site’s users rather than by its owner, for example in a blog comment, a forum post or a customer review. It signals that the site is not vouching for where the link goes.
How rel UGC works
Google announced the ugc attribute in September 2019 together with rel sponsored. Previously, sites marked user-added links with nofollow, which said nothing about why. The newer attributes let site owners describe the link: ugc for links from users, sponsored for paid links, nofollow for anything else they do not wish to endorse. Attributes can be combined, as in rel="nofollow ugc".
Google treats ugc, sponsored and nofollow as hints. It may still crawl a ugc link or use it to understand the web, but it does not treat the link as an editorial vote from your site. Many platforms add the attribute automatically. WordPress, for instance, adds rel="nofollow ugc" to links in comments by default, and most forum software does something similar.
Places where user-generated content usually appears on a business site include:
- Blog comment sections and comment author links.
- Community forums, Q&A areas and member profiles.
- Customer reviews on product or service pages.
- Guest submissions to directories or event listings that users can edit themselves.
Why it matters
Any site that lets visitors post links attracts spam. Automated bots fill comment sections and forums with links to gambling, loan and counterfeit sites, hoping to pass ranking value. If those links are left as normal, followed links, your site appears to be endorsing them, which damages trust signals and, if it gets bad enough, can lead to a manual action for user-generated spam.
Marking user links with ugc protects you from that while still allowing genuine conversation. A London cycling shop running a community forum, for example, can let members share links to routes and repair guides without vouching for every site they link to.
Common mistakes
- Assuming the platform handles it. Custom-built comment or review systems often output plain links. Check the HTML.
- Relying on the attribute instead of moderation. Rel ugc stops spam links passing value, but the spam still sits on your page, where it looks careless to visitors. Moderate as well.
- Removing the attribute across the board. Turning every user link into a followed link invites link spam at scale. Any exception should be earned by individual contributors over time.
- Forgetting profile pages. Member profiles with a website field are a favourite target for spam sign-ups.
How to act on it
List every part of your site where someone other than you can publish a link: comments, reviews, forums, profiles, submitted listings. View the source of a sample page from each and check that links carry rel="ugc" (or rel="nofollow ugc"). Where they do not, change the template or plugin settings.
If you run a forum or Q&A section that genuinely helps customers, look after its structure too. Give threads clear, descriptive titles, link to the best ones from relevant service or product pages, and remove or noindex threads that contain nothing but spam, so the useful discussions are the ones crawlers find.
Then add moderation: hold first-time comments for approval, use a spam filter, and close comments on old posts if they attract only spam. Once trusted contributors have shown they post genuinely useful links, you may choose to leave their links unmarked, as Google allows. Checking link attributes across a site is part of a technical SEO review.