Affiliate links vs. seo (updated 19.02.2014)
-
UPDATE - 19.02.2014:
Hi,
We got another negative answer from Google pointing again to our affiliate links, so the 301 redirect and block was not enough.
I understand the need of contacting all of them and ask for the nofollow, we've started the process, but it will take time, alot of time.So I'd like to bring to your attention another 2 scenarious I have in mind:
1. Disavow all the affiliate links.
Is it possible to add big amount of domains (>1000) to the disavow doc.? Anyone tryed this?2. Serve 404 status for urls coming from affiliates that did not add noffolow attribute.
This way we kinda tell G that content is no longer available, but we will end up with few thousand 404 error pages.
The only way to fix all those errors is by 301 redirecting them afterwards (but this way the link juice might 'restart' flowing and the problem might persist).Any input is welcomed.
Thanks
Hi Mozers,
After a reconsideration request regarding our link profile, we got a 'warning' answer about some of our affiliate sites (links coming from our affiliate sites that violate Google's quality guidelines).
What we did (and was the best solution in trying to fix the 'seo mistake' and not to turn off the affiliate channel) was to 301 redirect all those links to a /AFFN/ folder and block this folder from indexing.
We're still waiting for an answer on our last recon. request.I want to know you opinion about this? Is this a good way to deal with this type of links if they're reported? Changing the affiliate engine and all links on the affiliate sites would be a big time and technical effort, that's why I want to make sure it's truly needed.
Best,
Silviu -
As I said before, a 301 redirect will pass pagerank. Even if it goes to a blocked folder, that's still domain-level benefit coming into your site from "paid" links.
The best solution, in my opinion, is for sites to run their affiliate program through another domain first, and 302 (temporary) redirect the user to the main site.
Affiliate links to www.YourAffiliateDomain.com/?afflink-id=123, which has a domain-wide robots.txt disallow. The ?afflink-id=123 part tells the system where to redirect the user to on the primary domain. The user goes from that URL through a 302 redirect to the appropriate URL on your primary domain.
No pagerank is passed and you can kill off the domain if you ever need to and those redirects will stop coming into the site.
If you are unable to do all of this you can submit a disavow file for all non-compliant affiliate domains after asking them to nofollow their links. I think the limit is supposed to be 2,000 domains, but I've heard of people doing as much as 4,000 with no problem. Just give it a try and see what happens.
-
Hi guys,
I've updated the post with the latest news and switched it to 'discussion'.
Let me know your thoughts.Cheers,
S. -
Thanks for the insight Everett,
That's what I'm afraid of - the 'benefit' at the domain-level.
That's the plan: the affiliates to update their links, but I'm sure the process will not be very fast. -
Hello,
Even though you are blocking that folder the fact remains that you are paying people a commission to place followable links on their site. Since a 301 redirect passes pagerank you are still violating Google's guidelines even if the page two which thy point is blocked in the robots.txt file. This is because, technically, you might still benefit at the domain-level from those links pointing into your domain.
If you turned those links into 302 redirects and/or had the affiliates update them to add nofollow code, it would probably be enough.
-
The thing you did is very appropriate. As mentioned by Oleg Korneitchouk, you must nofollow all those links too.
-
Check out: http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-affiliate-links-we-handle-majority-of-them-125859
I would message all your aff's and ask them to nofollow, make the new default URL you give to aff's nofollow and keep your 301 redirect thing. In your next RR (if you need it) mention all those steps you took.
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
-
Link Types For Link Building
Hi i have a SEO agency we work with who are building quality guest post links for us, however they are also building forum, profile, blog comments
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | spyaccounts14
and directory based links. 60% of their links they are building are high quality, relevant guest posts while the other 40% are the other link types. The 40% seem to be relevant directories, forums, blog comments, etc. They said they build other link types because it diversifies the link building and profile rather then just building high quality guest posts. As just building one link type can leave a footprint. What are your thoughts on this? Cheers.0 -
Questions About Link Detox
Greetings: In April of 2014 an SEO firm ran a link removal campaign (identified spammy links and uploaded a disavow). The overall campaign was ineffective and MOZ domain rank has fallen to 24 from about 30 in the last year and traffic is 20% lower. I purchased a basic package for Link Detox and ran a report today (see enclosed) to see if toxic links could be contributing to our mediocre rankings. As a novice I have a few questions for you regarding this the use of Link Detox: -We scored a domain wide detox risk of 1,723. The site has referring root domains with 7113 links to our site. 121 links were classified as high audit priority. 56 as medium audit priority. 221 links were previously disavowed and we uploaded a spreadsheet containing the names of the previously disavowed links. We had LinkDetox include an analysis of no-follow links as they recommend this. Is our score really bad? If we remove the questionable links should we see some benefit in ranking? -Some of the links we disavowed last year are still linking to our site. Is it worthwhile to include those links again in our new disavow file? -Prior to filing a disavow we will request that Webmaster remove offending links. LinkDetox offers a package called Superhero for $469.00 that automates the process. Does this package effectively help with the entire process of writing and tracking the removal requests? Do you know of any other good alternatives? -A feature called "Boost" is included in the LinkDetox Super Hero package. It is suppose to expedite Google's processing of the disavow file. I was told by the staff at Link Detox that with Boost Google will process the disavow within a week. Do you have any idea if this claim is valid??? It would be great if it were true. -We never experienced any manual penalty from Google. Will uploading a disavow help us under the circumstances? Thanks for your feedback, I really appreciate it!!! Alan p2S6H7l
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Kingalan10 -
Best option for Affiliate links on your website?
Hello! I have a website which is completely affiliate based. What is the best option for the links on-page? Examples would be: affiliate.website.com/12901730?2=3532523=user12342901730?2=3532523=user?Whittie www.website.com/affiliate=user?Whittie=load-of-tracking=date=blah=blaH?blah And So on... Which look ugly as sin when you hover over the Anchor Text. Ideally I would like a 301 redirect to mysite.com/goto/affiliatename, which would then have a rel nofollow. This way I could also track the exit pages via Analytics too guess, which I've not currently got set up and i'm desperate for it to be done. Does this method effect anything on search engines though? I've seen mixed report, but going back to 2011 which is too long ago in the SEO world. Another option is to use the likes of "Bit.ly" or use another domain and host 301s on there? The new bit.ly integration from moz might come in handy here. Please advise on the subject, I really appreciate any help on this, as i'm at a brick wall. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Whittie0 -
Wordpress Config Thoughts: Multisite vs. Parent/Child Themes vs. Infinite WP?
We publish four local food and drink magazines, each with its own website and related web content. Even though the content across all four titles shares a common mission, there is little overlap in actual stories. That is, each site has its own story content, events calendar and business listing guide. Still, since we share an editorial staff and a common look among all four, we are debating the pros and cons of a few different wordpress and SEO configurations, and would welcome the community's input on the pros and cons. Here is what we are considering for the Wordpress configuration: Wordpress Multisite - concerns about 10-15% performance hit, incompatibility with certain plug ins, need to more ‘expert’ development InfiniteWP - concerns that adding a 3rd party plugin to the mix might complicate things Parent / child themes A single wordpress site with different content subfolders for each locale - simplifies events / guide listings / seo, but too much in one place? Problems with current config (four different wordpress installs across four different base domains - ediblemanhattan.com, ediblebrooklyn.com, ediblelongisland.com, etc) SEO value is currently spread across four base domains Four different wordpress installs / upgrades / templates / plugins must be managed separately Four different namespaces for registered users make cross-domain registration more difficult, less usable The independent site approach is potentially problematic if we were to decide to combine certain site features - for example guide and event listings - into a single site experience filterable by zip / location Our questions: WP config: independent sites vs. multisite vs. parent/child themes vs. other? SEO config: should we move to shared parent domain? If we do, should we use locale-based subfolders or second level domains (brooklyn.ediblemag.com vs. ediblemag.com/brooklyn)? Operations: We think there are SEO advantages to move all four sites share the same base domain - ex, ediblemagazine.com, but are there operational disadvantages we are not considering? Ability for local site editors to work within their locale section only Ability for ad sales to target a single locale, example, run of site display ads on specific locales Ability to segment users by their locale - ex. enroll users in email lists for edible brooklyn only
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | brianhalweil0 -
SEO value in baclklink from blog.domain VS domain
Will a back-link from "domain.com/abc" and "blog.domain.com/abc" have same value from an SEO perspective? Assume same article written on both sites.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | knielsen
I have been told the bots look at the domain value and the only links from blogs that have less value are in case of comments. As long as the "blog.domain/abc" page includes a full article and not a blog comment then it counts fully for SEO. Is this correct?0 -
How to ping the links
When i do link building for my website, how can i let the search engines know about that. is there any way of pinging?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | raybiswa0 -
Links in Behind a Tab in Body vs Footer
Though I would ask the community this as it relates to positioning of external links on page vs. code and body vs footer. Working with a strategic partner for some data sharing arrangements and the question exists whether followed links in the template footer to our partners website provide better value vs. Body Links with context behind a CSS Tab (All code for Tabbed content is resolved on the same page)? Yes there are links coming back from the partner site as well.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AU-SEO0 -
Panda Update - Challenge!
I met with a new client last week. They were very negatively impacted by the Panda update. Initially I thought the reason was pretty straight-forward and had to do with duplicate content. After my meeting with the developer, I'm stumped and I'd appreciate any ideas. Here are a few details to give you some background. The site is a very nice looking (2.0) website with good content. Basically they sell fonts. That's why I thought there could be some duplicate content issues. The developer assured me that the product detail pages are unique and he has the rel=canonical tag properly in place. I don't see any issues with the code, the content is good (not shallow), there's no advertising on the site, XML sitemap is up to date, Google webmaster indicates that the site is getting crawled with no issues. The only thing I can come up with is that it is either: Something off-page related to links or Related to the font descriptions - maybe they are getting copied and pasted from other sites...and they don't look like unique content to Google. If anyone has ideas or would like more info to help please send me a message. I greatly appreciate any feedback. Thank you, friends! LHC
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | lhc670