Thoughts on link building on websites marking the article as sponsored?

When it comes to building links on premium publications, a lot of those sites charges a premium price for an "advertorial" and wants to mark the content as sponsored. (Like writing "SPONSORED" at the beginning of the article, NOT using the rel=sponsored code)

Since Google presumably ignores sponsored dofollows, it would be interesting to hear your thoughts about it. Do the links still pass equity? Is it worth paying thousands of dollars for an article and follow link on a premium website, if they write that it's sponsored? (For the sake of SEO in this case, not for the brand awareness)

By premium publications I mean websites like Forbes, Vogue, CNN and so forth. This is also a common issue when building links on a lot of European (non-premium) websites, as a lot of countries have laws forcing the webmasters to use sponsor marks on their paid content.

I have never found any resource where anyone actually tested it and showed data on the SEO performance. Anyone tried it and what was your experience?

Yes, Google will clearly state that it is Sponsored means that content is advertised but probably it helps to increase the DA of your site + Link juice.

Firstly, it's only right that visitors know it's an advertorial.
Secondly, it has NO rel=sponsored tag. I've seen brands using those links and I don't think they just like wasting their money so it must be worth it.
My 2 cents.

praetserge said:

Firstly, it's only right that visitors know it's an advertorial.
Secondly, it has NO rel=sponsored tag. I've seen brands using those links and I don't think they just like wasting their money so it must be worth it.
My 2 cents.

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Brands that uses the sponsor code or posts articles stamped with "SPONSORED" all over may not be doing it for SEO, it may be considered a "PR collaboration" made by some marketing department that doesn't have a clue nor cares about SEO but only wants the brand mentioned by a big publication. Not bad in itself of course, it can still be effective marketing. For SEO however I'm not sure if there's any return of the investment?

Nata Lee said:

Yes, Google will clearly state that it is Sponsored means that content is advertised but probably it helps to increase the DA of your site + Link juice.

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Do you think it boosts domain authority within Moz/SEMrush only (as a decorative metric) or will Google also boost the site?

Big companies pretty much HAVE to use SPONSORED tags, not because of google, but because of brand association, PR, and more of that stuff.

As far as what Google see of it, it's nothing more than a way to tell them NY Times is not associated with your crappy CBD blog, which makes total sense. It's the way it should be.

I do sincerely believe the link still carries power, with to without such tags.

When you have too little going on with your SEO, you tend to focus on the small stuff. Just move on and do your stuff.

featherinhat said:

Brands that uses the sponsor code or posts articles stamped with "SPONSORED" all over may not be doing it for SEO, it may be considered a "PR collaboration" made by some marketing department that doesn't have a clue nor cares about SEO but only wants the brand mentioned by a big publication. Not bad in itself of course, it can still be effective marketing. For SEO however I'm not sure if there's any return of the investment?

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It's not all about SEO, maybe they're doing it for traffic too?

Alexion said:

Big companies pretty much HAVE to use SPONSORED tags, not because of google, but because of brand association, PR, and more of that stuff.

As far as what Google see of it, it's nothing more than a way to tell them NY Times is not associated with your crappy CBD blog, which makes total sense. It's the way it should be.

I do sincerely believe the link still carries power, with to without such tags.

When you have too little going on with your SEO, you tend to focus on the small stuff. Just move on and do your stuff.

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The reason this is on my mind is because a lot of journalists and publications have policies against linking out organically to commercial websites. I have worked with brands that's gotten (organic) mentions and articles by many big newspapers, but those newspapers won't link to the websites they are talking about. Even wikipedia are using nofollows on their sources. I honestly think Googles guidelines are misinterpreted a lot, since their main advice is "be awesome and people will link to you for free", like journalists will give you a link because they used your resource in their content.

This is not the case in reality, and reaching out to ask "can you kindly link to our homepage since you're talking about us in your content" typically leads to a marketing team jumping in to say "no, but you can buy an advertorial if you'd like a link".

Of course the mentions itself as well as advertorials can be great for brand awareness and traffic, but large corporations typically hire individuals to be ultra fixated on just SEO (and dofollows lol). They don't wanna "waste money" from the SEO budget to do PR-marketing.

Your CBD blog example is hilarious btw. I worked in another infamous industry few years ago and gaining a do follow from NYtimes was every managers dream, it was considered a golden ticket to be number 1 for the best keyword.

featherinhat said:

Do you think it boosts domain authority within Moz/SEMrush only (as a decorative metric) or will Google also boost the site?

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Yes, am very familiar with this.

As recently I did publications (March and April Month) for MercuryNews, SF Gate, and Timesunion for one of my clients and the results were good. He is getting the best results till now and hopes for the future as well.