Weird one. I wrote two genuine expert contributions this year, no money involved, and both sites tagged my links rel=”sponsored”. When I asked one of them why, they said their CMS now applies sponsored to all external links in contributor posts by default, “to be safe”.
Also seen a travel site put ugc on everything that isn’t their own domain, even in staff articles.
I get why publishers are nervous. But it feels like the attributes are losing their meaning if they’re applied to everything. Google says they’re hints anyway.
So a couple of questions:
1. Are you seeing this more often in 2026?
2. Do you push back and ask for a normal link, or accept it?
3. Anyone seen a sponsored-tagged link from a strong site actually help rankings?
I post plenty about nofollow value but sponsored feels like a different signal, so I’m genuinely unsure.
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