Do Affiliate Links Help SEO? (And Should They Be Nofollow?)
Not for rankings. Google says monetizing with affiliate links is fine but asks that they carry rel="sponsored", and links with that tag are generally not followed. Untagged affiliate links can draw a manual or algorithmic penalty.
Tag: rel="sponsored" (nofollow is still accepted).
What ranks: the original reviews and testing around the links.
Of 2,204 sites that replied to link requests sent through MentionAgent since June 2026, 34 brought up affiliate deals. 11 wanted one from the sender; 10 offered their own program instead of a link.
Counted by sender domain, 1 June to 8 October 2026. Method at the end.
What Google says about affiliate links
From Google's July 2021 post, A reminder on qualifying links and our link spam update:
- "In general, using affiliate links to monetize a website is fine."
- "We ask sites participating in affiliate programs to qualify these links with rel="sponsored", regardless of whether these links were created manually or dynamically."
- When sites don't, "we may issue manual actions to prevent these links from affecting Search, and our systems might also take algorithmic actions."
So affiliate links earn money, not rankings. The page around them is what can rank.
When affiliate links can hurt SEO
| Situation | Google's position | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Untagged affiliate links | Possible manual or algorithmic action (2021 post) | Add rel="sponsored" |
| Product copy lifted from the merchant | "Thin affiliation" in the spam policies: descriptions and reviews "copied directly from the original merchant without any original content or added value" | Add your own testing, prices, comparisons |
| Tagged affiliate links throughout a page | Listed as not a violation: "using affiliate links throughout a page, with links treated appropriately" | None needed |
Google's spam policies say "not every site that participates in an affiliate program is a thin affiliate", and name what good ones add: "additional information about price, original product reviews, rigorous testing and ratings, navigation of products or categories, and product comparisons."
Should affiliate links be nofollow or sponsored?
Sponsored. Google's guide to qualifying outbound links says to mark paid links "with the sponsored value", and that nofollow "is still an acceptable way to flag them, though sponsored is preferred." Since Google's request covers links "created manually or dynamically", a cloaked /go/ link counts too: tag it on the page. To see what your pages actually output, use our free nofollow link checker.
Are affiliate links backlinks?
Not ones that build rankings. Google says links with these rel values "will generally not be followed", so an affiliate program is a sales channel, not a link building plan. Paying affiliates to drop the tag makes them paid links, which Google's spam policies list as link spam ("exchanging money for links, or posts that contain links"). See buying backlinks and do nofollow links help SEO.
When a link request turns into an affiliate deal
In MentionAgent's outreach records, 34 of the 2,204 sites that replied to a link request since June 2026 raised affiliate deals:
| What the reply said | Sites |
|---|---|
| Wanted an affiliate deal from the sender: asked for a program or its terms, or had already joined one | 11 |
| Was the brand being pitched, and pointed to its own affiliate program as the way to be featured | 10 |
| Said no to affiliate deals, or listed affiliate content among topics they don't publish | 8 |
| Asked which kind of deal was on offer: editorial, exchange, sponsored or affiliate | 5 |
- Some review sites want terms first. Two asked for commission, cookie length, payout method and test access before agreeing to any mention.
- Existing deals can block a link. A travel blogger declined because of an affiliate agreement with a booking platform: not "looking to link out to any other third party activity booking sites."
- It's rare: 1.5% of sites that replied.
If you publish and accept an affiliate deal, tag the link sponsored. If someone wants an untagged link for money, that's a paid link; see when a blogger asks for money. For links that do count, see link outreach and link building for affiliate sites.
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- Replies: every inbound reply to link-building outreach sent through MentionAgent, 1 June to 8 October 2026: 4,696 messages from 2,204 sender domains. Quoted earlier emails were cut off before searching.
- Match: 61 messages containing "affiliat", each read and grouped by hand. 15 were noise (signatures, "affiliation" in its other sense, an auto-reply, a topic list, a quoted third-party pitch, an affiliate platform's own pitch).
- Counting: by sender domain, so a site that replied three times counts once.
Frequently asked questions
Do affiliate links help SEO?
Not for rankings. Google asks for rel="sponsored" on affiliate links, and links with that tag are generally not followed. They are fine for earning money.
Do affiliate links hurt SEO?
Not when tagged. Untagged ones can draw manual or algorithmic action, and pages that only copy merchant content count as thin affiliation under Google's spam policies.
Should affiliate links be nofollow?
Use rel="sponsored", which Google prefers. Nofollow is still accepted.
Are affiliate links backlinks?
Not ones that build rankings. Tagged sponsored, they are generally not followed. An affiliate program is a sales channel, not link building.