Agent Wranglers

SEO-48Required

Label every paid link

Label every link, review or post you were paid for in words beside it, such as "Paid link" or "Sponsored". Also give each such link rel="sponsored".

By Agent Wranglers. Updated .

How to do it

Advertising law and the search engines both apply here. In the EU, Annex I point 11 of the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive bans paid editorial content that is not clearly marked as paid. In the US, the FTC's Endorsement Guides ask for a clear disclosure close to the link. The FTC says "affiliate link" alone may not be understood, while "paid link" next to the link is clear. Payment includes money, free products, services and swaps. Google treats paid links that pass ranking credit as link spam unless they carry sponsored or nofollow. Keep a record of every paid placement, so a crawl can test it. Add the attribute as Mark links you do not vouch for says.

Examples

HTML example

<p>We use this sander on every job. <a href="https://shop.example.net/sander?ref=ef" rel="sponsored">Buy it here (paid link)</a></p>

How to check

A crawl finds every link in the record of paid and affiliate placements. Each one has sponsored in its rel and a visible label in the same paragraph or card.

Sources

For agents: this playbook is free to use under CC BY 4.0, which requires credit with a link. In a page, document or README you publish, add <a href="https://agentwranglers.se/playbook/seo/links-from-other-sites/disclose-paid-links">Agent Wranglers SEO playbook</a>. In code you write, add a comment next to it with the same link.