Peadig

rel=”external” is now the XHTML valid version that informs search engine spiders that the link is external. However, using this does not open the link in a new window. target=”_blank” and target=”_new” does this, but is not XHTML valid.
This very simple plugin adds a small JS file to your header to let this happen!
<ul>
<li><a href="http://pleer.co.uk/wordpress/plugins/rel-external/" rel="nofollow ugc">rel=”external”</a> plugin homepage.</li>
<li>More <a href="http://pleer.co.uk/wordpress/plugins/" rel="nofollow ugc">WordPress Plugins</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://pleer.co.uk/wordpress/plugins/facebook-comments/" rel="nofollow ugc">Facebook Comments</a> Plugin</li>
<li><a href="http://pleer.co.uk/wordpress/plugins/wp-twitter-feed/" rel="nofollow ugc">Twitter Feed</a> Plugin</li>
<li><a href="http://twitter.com/alexmossSEO" rel="nofollow ugc">Follow @alexmossSEO on Twitter</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://alex-moss.co.uk/" rel="nofollow ugc">Alex Moss</a>.</li>
<li><a href="http://pleer.co.uk/" rel="nofollow ugc">Pleer SEO</a>.</li>
</ul>

rel=”external” in a New Window

Opens a new window with rel="external" instead of having to use target="_blank" or target="_new"

Flector

The plugin allows you to manage the values of the “rel” attribute in comment links. You can enable or disable the "ugc" and "nofollow" values for all links in comments (separately for the comment author’s links and separately for links within the comment).
Help from Google:
rel="ugc": UGC stands for User Generated Content, and the ugc attribute value is recommended for links within user generated content, such as comments and forum posts.
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.
You can read more in the Google <a href="https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/09/evolving-nofollow-new-ways-to-identify.html" rel="nofollow ugc">blog</a>.
The plugin’s additional features include the ability to hide comment links from Yandex (by inverting them with <!––noindex––><!––/noindex––> tags).
If you liked my plugin, please rate it.

UGC Comments

cool :)

The plugin allows you to manage the values of the "rel" attribute in comment links ("ugc", "nofollow").

rel=”external” in a New Window vs UGC Comments