rel="sponsored"
A link attribute introduced by Google in 2019 to identify links created as part of advertising, sponsorships or other compensation…
ContentAffiliate marketing SEO
Affiliate SEO
Earning search traffic for content monetised through affiliate commissions; permitted by Google when the content adds substantial original value.
In full
Google's spam policies target thin affiliate pages — product descriptions and reviews copied from the merchant with nothing added. Compliant affiliate content demonstrates first-hand testing, original photography or measurement, and honest comparison, and qualifies outbound monetised links with rel=sponsored. Successive core and reviews updates have compressed the market for undifferentiated affiliate roundups considerably.
Example
A cycling site buys the products it reviews, publishes its measurement rig, and marks all merchant links rel="sponsored".
Related terms
Reviews system
Google's system for rewarding in-depth review content that demonstrates first-hand expertise, broadened in 2023 from products to services…
Commercial investigation intent
Queries from users comparing options before buying — 'best', 'vs', 'alternatives', 'review' — sitting between informational and…
Thin content
Pages with little or no substantive value of their own — scraped, auto-generated, doorway-like, or near-empty templated pages.
Google spam policies
Google's documented list of behaviours that can cause lower rankings or removal, covering cloaking, doorways, hacked content, keyword…