Paid Brand Mentions: Disclosure Rules and Google's Link Policies

This page is general information, not legal advice. Rules differ by country, change over time and depend on the facts of each case. For a specific campaign, ask a qualified lawyer in the markets where you operate.

Paid brand mentions are generally allowed in the US, UK and EU, with two conditions that run through every rule below. Readers must be able to tell that the content was paid for, and any link in it must not pass ranking credit in Google. Those two conditions are the baseline, not the whole picture: claims in the content must still be truthful, sector rules (health, finance, gambling and others) can add requirements, and labeling is not only the publisher’s concern, since UK advertising rules, for example, address marketers and publishers alike.

What does US law say about paid mentions?

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is the main US regulator here. Its Endorsement Guides were updated in June 2023, tightening rules on reviews, influencer tags and what counts as a clear disclosure.

The FTC says the Guides do not have the force of law, but practices inconsistent with them can lead to enforcement under Section 5 of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive practices. The 2023 revision also defined “clear and conspicuous” and noted that a platform’s built-in disclosure tool may not be enough on its own. Its Disclosures 101 guidance says any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a brand must be disclosed, that financial relationships are not limited to money, and that plain terms like “ad” or “sponsored” work while vague tags like “sp” or “collab” do not.

For sponsored articles, the FTC’s 2015 native advertising guide says an ad should not suggest it is anything other than an ad. It recommends labels such as “Ad”, “Advertisement”, “Paid Advertisement” or “Sponsored Advertising Content”, calls “Promoted” at best ambiguous, and warns that “Sponsored by [X]” may be read as the sponsor only funding the content.

What does the FTC’s fake review rule ban?

In August 2024 the FTC voted 5-0 to adopt a rule banning fake reviews and testimonials, including AI-generated ones. It also bans compensation conditioned on positive or negative sentiment, undisclosed insider reviews, company-controlled review sites posing as independent, review suppression, and buying or selling fake social media indicators such as followers. The rule has been in force since October 21, 2024.

The FTC’s December 2025 warning letters cited civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation. That figure is adjusted for inflation, so check the current amount. For brand mentions the lesson is simple: a mention describes a brand; it must never pose as a customer review or testimonial.

What do UK and EU rules require?

United Kingdom. The UK’s CAP Code, enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), says in rule 2.1 that marketing must be obviously identifiable as such. Rule 2.4 says advertorials must be made clear as marketing, for example with the heading “advertisement feature”. Since April 6, 2025, under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act, fake reviews are an automatically banned practice and the CMA can fine firms up to 10% of global turnover. The CMA’s fake reviews guidance also covers concealed incentivized reviews.

European Union. The Unfair Commercial Practices Directive lists practices that are always unfair. Point 11 of Annex I bans using editorial content to promote a product where a trader paid for it without making that clear (the advertorial rule). Points 23b and 23c ban commissioning false reviews or endorsements and claiming reviews are genuine without reasonable checks. These review rules, added by the Omnibus Directive, apply from May 28, 2022. Member states apply the directive through their own national laws, and national authorities enforce it. For widespread cross-border breaches, maximum fines must reach at least 4% of annual turnover or EUR 2 million where turnover data is unavailable.

What are Google’s rules on paid links?

Google’s policies are not law, but they govern how Google treats your site and the publisher’s site in search. Its spam policies list “buying or selling links for ranking purposes” as link spam, including exchanging money, goods or services for links, or sending a product in exchange for a post with a link. The same policy names advertorials and native advertising where payment is received for articles that include links passing ranking credit, and links with optimized anchor text in articles, guest posts or press releases distributed on other sites.

The fix is simple and documented. Google says paid links are acceptable when qualified with rel=”nofollow” or rel=”sponsored”. Its guide to qualifying outbound links asks that ads and paid placements use rel=”sponsored”, while still accepting nofollow. A mention with no link is not a link: Google’s John Mueller has said, as reported by Infidigit, that without a link no link signal passes. The link rules therefore apply to the link, not to the fact that you were named. Disclosure law still applies to a paid mention with no link.

What is site reputation abuse, and does it affect mentions?

Site reputation abuse is a Google policy announced on March 5, 2024 and enforced from May 5, 2024. Google’s current wording says it applies where third-party content is published on a host site mainly because of rankings that host earned with its own first-party content. From the start, Google named sponsored, advertising and partner pages as possible examples. In November 2024 Google clarified that publisher oversight or a business arrangement does not excuse content placed to exploit a host’s rankings.

Google is equally clear about what is not a violation. Its FAQ says having third-party content alone is not site reputation abuse. Its spam policy lists editorial columns, press release wires and advertorial or native advertising pages whose purpose is to share content directly with the publication’s readers, rather than to manipulate rankings, as not violating the policy. Since August 30, 2026, Google says, manual actions under this policy work differently inside the EEA: there the manual action’s impact does not apply, and the affected section may instead be separated so that, over time, it ranks independently.

The practical test is purpose. A paid mention inside a real article written for that publication’s audience, labeled as the market requires, is disclosed native advertising; an unpaid one is ordinary editorial. A batch of thin pages created on a strong domain mainly to rank is what the policy targets, whatever label it carries.

How do we apply these rules?

Our own practice, set out on our methodology page: mentions are written for each publication’s readers, sit on independent publications, follow each publisher’s rules and each market’s disclosure rules, and any link uses rel=”sponsored” or rel=”nofollow”. We never write fake reviews, testimonials, invented awards or claims. Our list of red flags when buying brand mentions shows what to watch for with any provider.

What to do next

• Ask any provider how paid placements are labeled and how links are marked, and check a few live URLs yourself.
• Put labeling and link-marking requirements in writing with any provider, and keep records of every paid placement, its label and its market.
• Get a free AI visibility check before deciding whether mentions are worth pursuing for your brand.
• If AI already names you, more mentions may not be the next step; being recommended near the top of ChatGPT answers is covered by The Blue Ocean GPT.

This page is general information, not legal advice. For advice on a specific campaign, consult a qualified lawyer in each market where you operate.