SEO is something that has been manipulated quite frequently in the past, and Google has tried to rectify this because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up enabling web pages that do not offer relevant content to rise to the top of the SERP rankings. However, it is important to note that Google has rolled out an important update that would make it so that spam links would become less likely to artificially boost a website’s SEO.
SEO professionals are now divided on what the best way to handle this would be. According to a Twitter poll (conducted by Aleyda Solis), some are apparently going to continue using the nofollow tag, but about a third stated that they would just follow the links without any kind of tag. Interestingly, about a third of respondents to this poll stated that they might switch to using a rel sponsored tag which is the second of the two tags that Google is currently recommending for this type of thing.
Using one of these tags is essential if you want to avoid a penalty for your sponsored links and the like, but Google does not seem to have a preference for either of these tags over the other. Much on the contrary, the important thing seems to be to use a tag in the first place, and whether that tag is rel nofollow or rel sponsored really depends on your personal preferences as opposed to anything else.
These attributes are a key component of SEO, and this is part of a wider shakeup of the SEO industry that might change the way websites are optimized in the future. Either way, it will most definitely result in a cleaner SEO industry wherein link spam would be far less effective than it used to be.
Read next: How Links Live on in Search Engine Rankings (infographic)
SEO professionals are now divided on what the best way to handle this would be. According to a Twitter poll (conducted by Aleyda Solis), some are apparently going to continue using the nofollow tag, but about a third stated that they would just follow the links without any kind of tag. Interestingly, about a third of respondents to this poll stated that they might switch to using a rel sponsored tag which is the second of the two tags that Google is currently recommending for this type of thing.
Using one of these tags is essential if you want to avoid a penalty for your sponsored links and the like, but Google does not seem to have a preference for either of these tags over the other. Much on the contrary, the important thing seems to be to use a tag in the first place, and whether that tag is rel nofollow or rel sponsored really depends on your personal preferences as opposed to anything else.
These attributes are a key component of SEO, and this is part of a wider shakeup of the SEO industry that might change the way websites are optimized in the future. Either way, it will most definitely result in a cleaner SEO industry wherein link spam would be far less effective than it used to be.
Read next: How Links Live on in Search Engine Rankings (infographic)
