Google just published best practices for bloggers who receive free products or services. If bloggers don’t follow the practices, the search engine giant may consider them in violation of its webmaster guidelines and eliminate them from search results.

PR and marketing departments and agencies that compensate bloggers are responsible for ensuring bloggers follow the best practices.

The guidelines published in the Google Webmaster blog urge bloggers who receive free products or services in return for mentioning or reviewing a product to:

Use the nofollow tag. Any links to the company’s website, social media accounts, online merchant’s page that sells the product, review services pages with review of the product, or the company’s mobile app in an app store should be nofollow. The links should be nofollow because they are not organic, Google says. They would not exist if the company had not offered a product.

In case you don’t know, a nofollow tag prevents the link from granting page rank authority to the website receiving the link. It is designed to prevent websites from gaming Google’s search algorithm. An example is: < a href= “https://www.example.com/” rel= “nofollow”> Link text </a >

“Companies, or the marketing firms they’re working with, can do their part by reminding bloggers to use nofollow on these links,” Google states.

Disclose their relationship. Bloggers must tell their readers they received a free product or other compensation. Users want to know when they’re viewing sponsored content. In addition, laws in some countries (including the U.S.) mandate disclosing sponsorships. A disclosure can appear anywhere in the post; however, the most transparent placement – and the placement favored by regulators — is at the top in case users don’t read the entire post.

Create compelling, unique content. “If you’re a blogger you might try to become the go-to source of information in your topic area, cover a useful niche that few others are looking at, or provide exclusive content that only you can create due to your unique expertise or resources,” the guidelines state.

Are Penalties Coming?

Google’s statement shows that incentivized, or nonorganic, links remain a problem. Some digital marketing experts, such as Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land news editor, warn that Google typically levies search engine listing penalties after it publishes best practices. Website operators who don’t follow its recommends can see their websites fall in organic ranking or disappear from search engine results.

Peter Prestipino, editor-in-chief of Website Magazine, wonders if the notice is an empty threat, or digital posturing. After all, Google lacks the means to differentiate organic links from incentivized links.

However, ethical bloggers will tell their readers if they obtain products for free and principled marketers will urge bloggers to follow the guidelines.

FTC Rules Require Disclosure

Google’s best practices are similar to Federal Trade Communications rules. The recent clarifications of those rules on endorsements oblige bloggers and other types of social media influencers to disclose payments they receive for reviewing or promoting products. The FTC considers bartering of products or services as payment. Payment destroys independence and creates kind of payola situation, the agency reasons.

The agency has punished companies for transgressions. For instance, it penalized ADT, a home security firm, for paying two influential bloggers to endorse its services while not disclosing financial arrangements. ADT allegedly paid the bloggers to be spokespersons on the NBC “Today” show for its home security system.

Besides facing FTC fines, companies can suffer tarnished reputations and loss of consumer trust.

Bottom Line: It’s incumbent on marketers who send bloggers free products to ensure that those bloggers follow Google’s best practices and FTC regulations. It’s the ethical way to do business.

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William Comcowich

William J. Comcowich founded and served as CEO of CyberAlert LLC, the predecessor of Glean.info. He is currently serving as Interim CEO and member of the Board of Directors. Glean.info provides customized media monitoring, media measurement and analytics solutions across all types of traditional and social media.