When Google introduced the nofollow attribute about 15 years ago, it was introduced as a means to fight comment spam. The nofollow attribute was also used to flag sponsored links. As the web has evolved since 2005, Google has introduced two new link attributes for sponsored content and user-generated content.

1. The rel="sponsored" attribute

2. The rel="ugc" attribute

3. The rel="nofollow" attribute

rel="nofollow": Use this attribute for cases where you want to link to a page but don’t want to imply any type of endorsement, including passing along ranking credit to another page.

Previously, Google would not count any nofollow link as a signal to use within the search algorithms. This has now changed.

Google treats all link attributes (sponsored, UGC and nofollow) as hints about which links to consider or exclude within Search. Google does not ignore these links completely as links contain valuable information that can help Google improve search. For example, the words within links describe the content they point at.

Google's Martin Splitt recently confirmed on Twitter that nofollow links won't be associated with your website:

Let's be careful here: We do respect nofollow - we don't associate the link with your site.

However, we may still use the link for discovery.

That's an important nuance here...

— Martin Splitt at 🏡🇨🇭 (@g33konaut) February 7, 2020

Although it is not necessary to change your existing nofollow links, you might want to use the new link attributes for future links:

• If you use nofollow now as a way to block sponsored links, or to signify that you don’t vouch for a page you link to, that will continue to be supported.
• There’s absolutely no need to change any nofollow links that you already have.
• You can use more than one attribute, for example, rel="ugc sponsored" or rel="nofollow ugc".
• If you want to avoid a possible link scheme action, use rel="sponsored" or rel="nofollow" to flag these links.

According to Google, the move to a hint model won't change the nature of how Google treats such links. It will treat them as it did with nofollow before and not consider them for ranking purposes.

All the link attributes, sponsored, ugc and nofollow, now work today as hints for Google to incorporate for ranking purposes. Google's John Mueller said that the change on March, 1st probably has no visible effect on most sites:

I wouldn't be surprised if it had no visible effect on most sites.

— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) February 28, 2020

"But some are saying they saw an update on February 1st and 7th. [...] Frédéric Dubut from Bing said on Twitter 'We make changes to the core ranking model all the time, some bigger than others.'"

"Most big brands are ready and most sites are responsive. If you're not ready, then you have 6 months to get there. Basically, mobile users are surpassing desktop users and Google wants to make sure that users have a good experience."

"Gary Illyes from Google said on Twitter a 'site being tainted after a manual action is a SEO myth.' He said once you 'you request a reconsideration request and if successful, you're off the hook.' [...]

Although, that doesn't mean your rankings will bounce back. Sometimes there may be algorithms holding you back even after a manual action is removed."

"The foundation of the law is that user interface providers will be required to have a representative in Germany or the European Economic Area who can be sued in court for violations. Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, and Apple Siri voice assistants would all fall under the user interface banner.

The actual potential violations under the law are largely about identifying facts or opinions and ensuring that technical tools aren’t used to trick users into forming a specific opinion."