What really matters in Google’s nofollow changes? SEOs ask
Who benefits, who will implement the new attributes and how much change should site expect? Google’s news Tuesday that it is treating the Nofollow attribute as a “hint” for ranking rather than a directive to ignore a link, and the introduction of rel=" sponsored" and rel="UGC" raised reactions and questions from SEOs about next steps and the impact of the change to a nearly 15-year-old link attribute. Choices for choice sake? As Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan stated in a tweet Tuesday, the announcement expands the options for site owners and SEOs to specify the nature of a link beyond the singular nofollow attribute. The additional sponsored and UGC attributes are aimed at giving Google more granular signals about the nature of link content. As a point of clarification, Google’s Gary Illyes tweeted that nofollow in meta robots will also be treated as a “hint,” but there are no UGC or sponsored robot meta tags. He also stated that he’ll be upd...