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
-
Can 'follow' rather than 'nofollow' links be damaging partner's SEO
Hey guys and happy Monday! We run a content rich website, 12+ years old, focused on travel in a specific region, and advertisers pay for banners/content etc alongside editorial. We have never used 'nofollow' website links as they're no explicitly paid for by clients, but a partner has asked us to make all links to them 'nofollow' as they have stated the way we currently link is damaging their SEO. Could this be true in any way? I'm only assuming it would adversely affect them if our website was peanalized by Google for 'selling links', which we're not. Perhaps they're just keen to follow best practice for fear of being seen to be buying links. FYI we now plan to change to more full use of 'nofollow', but I'm trying to work out what the client is refering to without seeming ill-informed on the subject! Thank you for any advice 🙂
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SEO_Jim0 -
SEO site Review
Does anyone have suggestions on places that provide in depth site / analytics reviews for SEO?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Gordian0 -
Magento SEO firm
I'm looking for an SEO company that has substantial experience with the Magento shopping cart system. I've gone thru MOZ.com's Recommended List but I'm unsure of who specializes in Magento. Thanks.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | UncleXYZ0 -
Organic Links and Skimlinks Affiliate Program
Hi All, If you're not familiar with Skimlinks, what they do is turn organic links into affiliates links so that publishers can earn commission through our affiliate program. Pretty much every SEO's nightmare. myfashionlife.com/archives/2013/07/16/get-anne-hathaways-paper-denim-and-cloth-look/ anchor text "Floppy straw hat" Looking at the source code the link looks clean, but as soon you click on it you get redirected via a 302 to our site. My questions is; is it just users that get redirect or is it the same for search engines? Screaming frog recognises the link as a 200. Are we losing all the link juice, or is it fine? I've have half a mind to kick them out of the program. Cheers
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Carlos-R0 -
Hosting Providers and SEO
I have been wondering for a while which web host provider is the best for SEO purposes? Things to consider. Shared Hosting vs Dedicated Server Location of the Host Provider Site Up Time One question that I have been thinking about is what impact would changing a host provider have on a websites serps ranking? Is there a possible negative impact and if so how can it be avoided? Name the top 3 Web Hosts for SEO.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | bronxpad0 -
On-site links
Hi everybody, There's a lot of information about getting sitewide backlinks, but so few about on-site optimization. Is there a maximum of links to put on a page ? Is there a maximum of link that a page should receive ? etc ... ? So, what is the optimal strategy ? And I'm only concerned about on-page and on-site link, not backlinks commming from other sites. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | DavidPilon0 -
SEO Link on Clients Site
Hey SEOMozzers, Quick question. In light of the possible 'over-optimisation' penalties pending from Google should we be looking to remove the SEO links to our site from our Clients websites? I appreciate that including a link to our site from an anchor text that includes 'SEO' in it may be like waving a flag to Search Engines saying we are carrying out SEO on our Clients sites. Obviously we would sooner risk a drop in our SEO keyword rankings than risk a penalty of any kind for our Clients. What is the recommended practice here?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | MiroAsh0 -
SEO - What Should We Do...
Hi Guys, Hope your all OK. Were having major problems with our homepage ranking for our main keyword - we were originally 4 but over the Christmas period our SEO company reported a fault with one of there servers that they were using for links, because of this fault these links were de-indexed from the search engine and in turn we have plummeted to 10th... At the time we had a landing page with an exact match keyword in it, e.g: www.ourdomainname.co.uk/key-word/ we were told to 301 this to our main page in Google but when we have looked today its now showing this page instead of our homepage. We also have another domain that we are using for a forum at the moment, now this domain name is an exact match doming e.g www.keyword.co.uk. The question is do we gamble and 301 our whole site to www.keyword.co.uk and see if we can get this ranking better? Thanks, Scott
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | ScottBaxter0