If a company sends you a product to review, the links you add in your post are treated differently from links you earned on your own. Google’s guidance for bloggers is simple: don’t pass search-engine ranking credit (PageRank) to links that exist because you received goods or services.
Which links should be marked nofollow
Examples of the sorts of links Google flagged as non-organic — and therefore appropriate to mark with rel="nofollow" — include links a company asks you to add after providing a free product:
- a link to the company’s website - links to the company’s social accounts - a link to the merchant page where the product is sold - a review-aggregator or review-service page for that product - a link to the product’s listing in an app store
The common thread is that these links didn’t arise because of your independent editorial judgement; they were requested or expected as part of the promotional arrangement.
Why add rel="nofollow" and how to do it
Search engines treat links as votes of confidence. If you link to a merchant or brand in exchange for a free item and don’t mark the link appropriately, that can be seen as passing ranking credit in return for goods — something search engines warn against. Using rel="nofollow" tells crawlers that the link is not an editorial endorsement for ranking purposes.
How to add it: in HTML, include rel="nofollow" inside the anchor tag. For example:
<a href="https://example.com/product" rel="nofollow">Buy the gadget</a>
On many publishing platforms you can add link attributes in the link dialog, or use a plugin or the editor’s advanced options to include rel="nofollow". If you’re unsure where to add it, check your publishing platform’s support documentation — most make this straightforward.
Practical tips
- Be transparent with readers: clearly disclose that you received the item for free. Disclosure is about honesty with your audience, separate from the technical step of nofollowing links. - Keep editorial control: accept or reject products based on whether they fit your audience and your review standards. If you publish, aim for a genuine, useful review. - Mark only the promotional links: if you independently link to a company's useful resource you found in the course of reporting, that link is different. The focus here is on links that are part of a promotional arrangement.
Treat rel="nofollow" as a small, standard step when you write reviews of free products. It protects you from unintentionally assisting a link scheme and keeps your site aligned with search-engine expectations — while your disclosure and honest opinion keep readers’ trust. For the latest details on how search engines handle link attributes, consult the search-engine webmaster guidance or help centre relevant to your platform.