Sitewide links from affiliates. Good or bad?
-
We have 14 affiliate sites that have a sitewide banner linked to one of our pages. The banner link is "follow" and contains an alt text that includes a brand name and a keyword. Are these links harming us, or creating value?
We were hit by Panda 2.0 - do you think it might be the reason?
-
Other members have given good advice on nofollowing those links. I just wanted to answer your other question: It would be more likely that the Penguin algorithm update would affect you in regard to this specific issue. If you truly were affected by Panda it probably has something to do with the quality of your site, specifically the content, as opposed to off-site factors like followable affiliate links.
-
Agree with Jan. These are, in essence, paid links and Google has been very vocal about the fact that paid links should not pass page rank.
If these are banner ads with a campaign tag, Google may be aware that they are ads. To be safe, why not ensure that links from affiliates are 'nofollow'.
Lisa
-
Since these are affiliate links, I believe they should be marked as nofollow, otherwise they might be considered paid links and penalized. However, if the links are through one of the major affiliate networks, then I believe Google is already aware that they are affiliate links and won't pass the link juice. I'd consider it unlikely that you're being penalized if the links are through a big affiliate network (for example CJ or Linkshare).
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Better to place linked-back article or post article and seek multiple links?
Which option is better for SEO purposes: 1. Author article for trade journal in return for link back to my home page. 2. Post article on my site and solicit links from multiple sites. Assume links all have moderate authority.
Link Building | | Lysarden0 -
Why are bit.ly and ow.ly links showing up as Inbound Links?
Hello! I noticed this question was asked a while back (around 2013 i think), but I still don't quite understand why I'm seeing these shortened URLs come up as Inbound Links? Can someone please explain? Thanks,
Link Building | | txwildcard
Carlos0 -
Changing links
Hi guys i wanted you views on changing the anchor text of links. I have quality links coming in but with year terms such as 2012 in there, if i want to change them all to 2013 for example would it be badly seen by Google? I cant say i feel comfortable about doing it but they are my links and are related to our products. Any advice much appreciated.
Link Building | | pauledwards0 -
Why my twitter handle link is not getting counted in links, though for other sites it is counting!
My twitter handle page link is not getting counted, though it is getting counted for other sites
Link Building | | EG0CENTRIX0 -
Can bad links be removed from a website
An SEO company we contracted with linked us up with many poor quality sites - some in foreign countries and now our site has hundreds and thousands of poor quality links to inappropriate sites.. Is there any way to un-link from these? Thank you!
Link Building | | Barb1230 -
Back Link: Is LinkedIn keywords in profile good Link building strategy?
I distribute industrial products B2B with e commerce. I have a personal profile on LinkedIn. I listed the products I sell and I could have all my partners and associates list my web site on their profiles. Do search engines review LinkedIn personal profiles or company profiles and is it a good marketing strategy to have my web site, keywords, and my two largest selling products on LinkedIn?
Link Building | | Wales0 -
Links with very bad anchor text!
I have a client with an online shop with auto parts in Romania, on google.ro. The site is quite old but it hasn't good links. The only links (about 700 seen in OSE) the site have are from porn sites/forum/blogs with all kind of obscene words in the anchor text. Those links were placed by competitors, i am sure of that. Now how Google treats those links? Does he know that those links were not placed by any normal human? Does it gives credit to them or doesn't? The site is on a very competitive niche and it is not ranking so good.
Link Building | | maldiniii0 -
Inbound links vs. internal links
Which scenario does more to help SEO - A) An inbound link from a low traffic/low page rank site to my site B) An internal link where one page of my site links to another page on my site
Link Building | | DVanSchepen0