rel="ugc" user generated links

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What Are UGC Links? A Complete Guide to the rel="ugc" Attribute
The short answer

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rel="ugc" is an HTML link attribute that tells search engines a link was posted by a site visitor rather than by the site owner. UGC stands for "user-generated content." You add it to the

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<a> tag on links that appear in comments, forum posts, reviews, wiki edits, or any other content your users submit rather than content you wrote yourself.

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<a href="https://example.com" rel="ugc">check this out</a>
Google introduced

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rel="ugc" in September 2019 alongside a second new attribute,

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rel="sponsored", to give site owners a more precise way to label different kinds of links than the old catch-all

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rel="nofollow" allowed.
Why it exists
Before 2019, webmasters had exactly one tool for telling search engines "don't treat this link as an endorsement from me":

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rel="nofollow". It got used for three very different situations that all needed different handling:
Paid or advertising links, where a site owner wants to avoid passing SEO value in exchange for money. Links inside user comments, forum posts, or other content the site owner didn't write and can't fully vet. Ordinary links a site owner just doesn't want to vouch for, for whatever reason.
Google split that single attribute into three, so search engines and site owners could be more specific:

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rel="sponsored" for paid or advertising links.

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rel="ugc" for links inside user-submitted content.

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rel="nofollow" as the general-purpose fallback for anything that doesn't fit the other two, or for combining with the others.
You can combine values in one attribute, for example

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rel="ugc nofollow", and older crawlers that don't recognize

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ugc or

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sponsored will just fall back to treating the link as nofollow.
Hint, not a hard rule
Google is explicit that

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rel="ugc",

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rel="sponsored", and

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rel="nofollow" are all treated as hints for crawling and indexing, not absolute directives. In practice that means Google will generally not follow a link carrying any of these attributes, but it may still discover and crawl the destination page through some other route, such as a sitemap or a link from a different site. The attribute stops the link from vouching for the target page; it does not guarantee the page stays uncrawled or unindexed.
Where to use rel="ugc"
Use it on any link that a visitor added to your site rather than a link you wrote as the site owner:
Blog or article comments. Forum posts and signatures. Product or service reviews. Q&A site answers. Wiki contributions. Guest book or directory submissions.
Google's own guidance adds one nuance worth knowing: if you have long-standing, trusted contributors whose links you're comfortable vouching for, you're allowed to remove the

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ugc attribute from their links specifically. That is a judgment call about which users you trust, not a requirement.
rel="ugc" vs rel="nofollow" vs rel="sponsored"
The three attributes answer three different questions about a link, and Google recommends picking the one that actually describes the situation instead of defaulting to nofollow for everything.
Use

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sponsored when money, free products, or any other form of compensation is behind the link, such as affiliate links, paid placements, or ads.
Use

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ugc when the link came from user-submitted content and you can't personally vouch for it.
Use

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nofollow when neither of the above applies but you still don't want to imply endorsement, or when you're not sure and want a safe general-purpose choice.
They can be combined in a single

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rel attribute separated by spaces when more than one applies, for example a sponsored link inside a comment could reasonably use

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rel="ugc sponsored".
Does it affect SEO?
Indirectly, yes, in a couple of ways worth knowing before you implement it.
It protects your site's credibility signals. Since links in comments and forums aren't content you vetted, marking them

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ugc keeps you from implicitly vouching for destinations you don't control, which matters if spammers dump links into your comment sections.
It doesn't guarantee those pages are never crawled or ranked, so it's not a spam-proofing tool on its own. You still need comment moderation, CAPTCHA, or similar spam controls;

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rel="ugc" is a labeling mechanism, not a filter.
It has no direct ranking effect on your own page. Adding

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rel="ugc" to outbound links in your comments doesn't help or hurt how your page itself ranks. Its purpose is about the relationship between your page and the linked page, not your page's own authority.
How to implement it
Manually, for hand-coded links: just add the attribute to the anchor tag, as in the example at the top of this guide.
Automatically, for comment or forum systems: most major platforms already do this for you. WordPress has applied

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rel="ugc" automatically to links submitted through its native comment system since version 5.3 (released in November 2019). Many forum platforms and CMSs with built-in commenting handle it the same way. If you're running a platform that doesn't, or you built a custom comment or forum system, you'll need to add logic that appends

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rel="ugc" (and

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nofollow, if you want the fallback protection) to links at the point where user-submitted content is rendered.
If you want to verify it's actually in place, view the page source of a comment or forum thread and check that submitted links carry the attribute in their

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<a> tags, or use your browser's inspector on a specific link.
Common mistakes
Applying

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ugc to links you wrote yourself. It's specifically for content submitted by others, not a general-purpose "be cautious" attribute for your own outbound links.
Assuming it blocks crawling entirely. It's a hint. Google can still find and index the destination through other paths.
Skipping spam moderation because links are tagged. The attribute manages how link equity flows; it does nothing to stop spam content from appearing on your site or being seen by your human visitors.
Using

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nofollow everywhere out of habit instead of choosing the attribute that actually matches the situation. Google has said it prefers the more specific attributes where they apply.
Quick reference

[th]Attribute[/th] [th]Use for[/th] [th]Typical source[/th]
Code Select Expand rel="ugc"	Links inside content submitted by users	Comments, forum posts, reviews, wikis
Code Select Expand rel="sponsored"	Paid, affiliate, or compensated links	Ads, sponsorships, affiliate programs
Code Select Expand rel="nofollow"	General "don't vouch for this" or fallback	Anything not covered by the other two

All three are hints to search engines, can be combined in one

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rel value, and are supported the same way across modern browsers since they only affect how crawlers interpret the link, not how it renders or behaves for visitors.
Sources:

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  Qualify Outbound Links for SEO - Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com