Aug 17, 2026 · 6 min read
Two questions confuse every new Amazon affiliate: do my links need rel=nofollow, and what do I have to disclose? The honest answer is that there are three separate rulebooks — Amazon's operating agreement, Google's link guidelines, and consumer-protection law — and they overlap. This guide sorts out which rules are real, which are best practice, and how to mark up your links so you never have to think about it again.
Three rel values appear on outbound links, and they say very different things to Google:
AmzLossrel="nofollow" — don't pass PageRank or follow this link for ranking purposes.rel="sponsored" — this link is paid, placed, or an affiliate/advertising link (Google's official label, added in 2019).rel="ugc" — the link appears in user-generated content like comments or forum posts.Amazon's pre-made widgets ship with rel="nofollow" baked in, which tells you a lot: nofollow is the conventional default for Associates links. Google treats a link that's placed for money — and an affiliate link is exactly that — as manipulated if it isn't marked. Either nofollow or sponsored satisfies Google; pick one and apply it to every Amazon link on your site so a single oversight doesn't put a whole post at risk.
Consumer-protection agencies in the US (FTC) and most other countries require you to tell readers that affiliate links may earn you money. A hidden or vague disclosure gets sites fined regardless of what Amazon says. The practical standard is a clear line near the top of each post — before the first link — plus a permanent page. Amazon's own requirement is contractual: your site must state that you participate in the Associates program, typically with "As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases." Our Affiliate Disclosure page shows a compliant template you can adapt.
Manually editing attributes on every link in every post is error-prone — and the errors are invisible until Google or a reader flags them. Most site owners handle it once in their theme or CMS: a global setting that adds rel="nofollow sponsored" (or just sponsored) and target="_blank" to every outgoing Amazon link. If you use Amazon's SiteStripe widgets, their links are already marked. For your own hand-built links, use the Link Tools to generate clean tag-based URLs and confirm the markup before the link ever reaches your site.
The failures we see most in audits: affiliate links with no attribute at all, disclosure text only in the footer (too far from the content), and short links that Amazon's own rules ban — none of which your theme's global setting will fix. Pair a global rel rule with a quick content check: does every post with an Amazon link carry a visible disclosure before the first link, and does every Amazon link carry a tag plus the attribute? If yes to all three, you're compliant in 2026.
Amazon's operating agreement doesn't require nofollow, and its pre-made SiteStripe widgets use nofollow by default. However, Google treats paid links as manipulated without rel=nofollow or rel=sponsored, so the safe practice is to mark every Amazon affiliate link nofollow — or sponsored, which Google explicitly supports for affiliate links — to protect your rankings.
Yes. US FTC rules and similar regulations in many countries require you to disclose that links on your page may earn you a commission. The disclosure should be clear, placed before the affiliate content, and not buried in fine print — a short line near the top of the post plus a site-wide disclosure page.
Yes. The Amazon Associates operating agreement requires a disclosure that you participate in the Associates program, typically 'As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases' or similar, placed on your site. It's a contractual obligation, not just a best practice, so missing it can end your account.
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