What Are UGC Links? rel=ugc Explained

UGC links are links placed inside content that a user submits, not content the site owner writes. Think blog comments, forum replies, and public profiles. Google asks sites to mark these links with the rel="ugc" attribute, so it knows the link came from a visitor and not an editor.

What does UGC mean in links?

UGC means user-generated content. It is any content a regular visitor adds to a site, rather than content the site's staff writes. A blog comment is UGC. A forum reply is UGC. A product review is UGC. When that content contains a link, SEOs call it a UGC link.

The distinction matters because site owners cannot fully control what visitors post. A comment section can fill with spam links overnight. Google needed a way for sites to flag that risk without disabling comments altogether.

Why did Google create rel="ugc"?

Before 2019, sites had one tool: rel="nofollow". It worked, but it lumped three very different link types into one bucket. A paid ad, a spam comment, and a legitimate but unverified submission all looked the same to Google.

In its evolving nofollow announcement from September 10, 2019, Google introduced two new attributes alongside nofollow: rel="sponsored" for paid or advertising links, and rel="ugc" for links inside user-submitted content. The goal was more precise signals, not less flexibility.

Google said site owners could still use plain nofollow if they did not want to be specific. But rel="ugc" gives Google better data for training its ranking systems, since it can tell exactly which links came from a comment box.

Where do UGC links show up?

UGC links appear anywhere a platform lets visitors post content and include a URL.

• Blog comments. WordPress and most comment plugins add rel="ugc" to links inside comment text.
• Forum posts and replies. Community platforms tag outbound links in posts as ugc or nofollow.
• Q&A sites. Answers on question-and-answer platforms often carry links back to a source.
• Wikis. Editable pages that accept public contributions treat added links as UGC.
• Public profiles. A bio field or profile page with a website field counts as UGC once a visitor fills it in.
• Guestbooks and reviews. Any open submission form with a URL field can produce a UGC link.

These are the same environments we cover in our roundup of free UGC backlink sites. Most of them label their outbound links the same way, once you check the page source.

The hint model since March 2020

For its first six months, rel="ugc" worked like classic nofollow: a strict instruction Google always followed. That changed on March 1, 2020. Google moved nofollow, sponsored, and ugc into a single hint model.

A hint means Google may still crawl the link, follow it, and use it as a ranking signal, depending on other context on the page. It is not a promise that the link counts. It is a signal that Google weighs against everything else it knows about the page and the domain.

In practice, this rarely changes anything for a random comment link. Google's systems still treat most UGC links as low value, because most comment sections have poor context and no editorial review. We go deeper on this in UGC links and SEO.

Which platforms mark links as UGC?

Many mainstream platforms already handle this correctly, without any setup from the poster.

• WordPress adds rel="ugc" automatically to approved comment links, since version 5.3.
• Discourse forums apply rel="nofollow ugc" to links in new posts by default.
• Stack Exchange sites, including Stack Overflow, use nofollow on most external links in answers and comments.
• Large Q&A and community platforms generally default to nofollow or ugc, then trust weighted signals to loosen that over time for established contributors.

If you run a site with open comments, check your theme or plugin settings. Most modern software adds the tag on its own. If you built a custom form, add rel="ugc" to any link field a visitor controls. This protects your outbound link juice and keeps your site well clear of Google's link spam policies.

None of this replaces real link building. If you need editorial links that pass full authority, handmade backlinks do the job — and let you skip the comment sections entirely.