Rel=ugc

What Does Rel=ugc Mean?

If your website allows comments, forum posts, or user reviews, rel=ugc is your most important protection against spam penalties. Without this marking, spam links in user comments could damage your entire link profile. Most CMS systems set rel=ugc automatically — but still check whether your comment plugins and forums implement this designation correctly.

rel=“ugc” is a link attribute for marking user-generated content (User Generated Content). This attribute was introduced by Google to distinguish links in comments, forum posts, guestbook entries, and other user-generated content from editorial links. With rel=“ugc,” a website signals: “These links were created by users, not by us. We do not have full control over the quality or topic of these links.” The attribute helps Google distinguish between genuine content and potential spam.

Technically, rel=“ugc” works like the other link attributes: <a href="[https](/en/glossary/https/)://example.com" rel="ugc">. Google has announced that rel=“ugc” links receive similar treatment as rel=“nofollow” links — they do not directly influence rankings, but are crawled and analyzed. The difference from rel=“nofollow” is that the rel=“ugc” attribute makes the intention more explicit: it does not only say “no follow,” but explains why there is no follow (because the user created it, not the website itself). This helps Google better assess link quality and identify spam networks.

For website operators with active comment, forum, or review systems, rel=“ugc” is an important marking. You should have all links in user-generated content automatically tagged with this attribute — most CMS systems and plugins (e.g., Akismet for WordPress) support this. This is not only good for SEO, but also a protection against spam and spam-related penalties. A website with many unmarked spammer links can be negatively evaluated by Google; with rel=“ugc” markings, you show that you control where the links come from.