What impact do affiliate links have on SEO
-
We commonly reference engineering standards on our site (because half our products are known and searched for by those standard names) and have just signed up as an affiliate to an organisation that sell the standards. Which seems a nice match
We're going through and making sure all are no follow now because that seems the general advice - but should we be doing anything else?
Yoast says you should mask affiliate links - https://yoast.com/affiliate-links-and-seo/ - but that was from 2010. Matt Cutts is fairly clear on nonfollow - http://www.webpronews.com/heres-what-googles-matt-cutts-says-about-affiliate-links-and-nofollow-2012-06 - but not on whether it affects SERPS
Does it? And what is the best way to handle it?
This is a typical example of a page where we would have an affiliate link or two. http://www.oakleysteel.co.uk/fake-mill-certificates-en10168
-
Just make sure you no follow them. If the links were do follow it could be seen as a paid link scheme - I know that sounds quite contrived, but that is how Google might (and has) viewed affiliate links that pass link equity in the past. They are, in effect, paid links that may help improve organic visibility.
You don't want to risk being a part of that "link scheme", so make sure you no follow your links. It does seem quite absurd I know and you'd think that common sense would prevail if someone was using affiliate links and wasn't aware of the SEO ramifications, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
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
-
Guilty of keyword cannibalization. What's the best way to fix it without losing link juice?
Hi guys, I'm new here but I already spent hours reading the forums. I didn't post before because I didn't feel the need to, but today it's different. I don't want to take fixing steps that are not optimal for my website situation. So here's the problem : I am working on an affiliate website that is growing day after day and is already profitable. It is not by any mean a thin affiliate site. It's a french language website with product reviews on it. Right now there is 1 main page (hero page) per review in which I describe the products, put affiliate links, present useful information, etc. These pages have a good word count and I am targeting 1-2 main keywords on them which I consider a good practice. Couple of months ago I decided to add a product page for each one (normally it's 5 products per review) so I added 5 more page per review, targeting product names as new keywords. Problem is that : Product names are very similar to the main keywords (keyword cannibalization problem) There is very little added information on the product page when you compare it to the hero page (too thin) A lot of information is repeated on each of the product pages. I think this is bad. So I decided to keep only the hero pages to keep more link juice, avoid keyword cannibalization, improve page authority and get more content on one single page (only information that was not repeated have been added to hero page). I removed ALL THE LINKS to product pages (from the hero page). So now for my questions : Is it better to keep the product pages in my sitemap or to delete them right away? Is it better to let the product pages die by themselves over time or to 301 redirect all the product pages to hero page to keep link juice? The next question is a bit more complicated. Hope you guys understand what I mean. Considering that product pages are now gone, this will for sure weaken my bounce rate % because only hero page with good/deep information will be accessible to visitors (there is not a lot of internal links in each review, except to other, RELATED reviews). Is setting up goals in google analytics + telling google that it should consider a click on an affiliate link as a NEW PAGE VIEW (like it would act for a click on a link of a product on my own domain) will help for SERPs and SEO?? Or it will just help ME to see a lower bounce rate and setting goals? In other words, is tracking these links and let google see them as new pages clicks will help for the page rankings or not? Because from what I am understanding, a good bounce rate helps for rankings. If the changes made to avoid keyword cannibalization work, when could I potentially see the effects/benefits in the SERPs and trafic?
Affiliate Marketing | | benoit_20181 -
Affiliate Program: Does anyone know how to set this up?
Hi Guys Does anyone know how I can make a affiliate programme on my website eg - I have a sales person in two of our local regions and I want to find a way I can track any sales made through them via my website so I can pay them their commission. Any advice around this, the website is wordpress! Cheers Justin
Affiliate Marketing | | edward-may0 -
How to track Affiliate Clicks to Google Analytics
Hi, We would like to track the affiliate link clicks. Is there any way to track it from Google Analytic? Rajiv
Affiliate Marketing | | gamesecure0 -
Ecommerce affiliate marketing comparison engine
Does anyone know if there is such a thing as an ecommerce comparison platform for affiliate programs? Something that would say, take a particular product, and let the user compare between Amazon, eBay, Walmart (all would be through affiliate programs). Does such a thing exist? Or is such a thing even feasible? oops, sorry for multiple posts, please let me know if i can delete somehow
Affiliate Marketing | | Mozzin0 -
Merchant´s data feed for affiliates is the same content as their own website...
Hi Some advice appreciated. Started working on a site and found out that they are giving their unique content to their affiliates (an XML feed so appearing on another domain). In this case, if they want to provide the data like that, how can we protect ourselves? Should we use author tags in our html, is that necessary? Is there any fix other than "stop doing that and give them different content"? Thanks
Affiliate Marketing | | xoffie0 -
Affiliate System for my Website
So, I like to implement one affiliate system on my website and to generate URL for every online marketing campaign. because i like to know when someone has ordered it from Organic, and when from any Google Adwords Campaigns etc.. What do you suggest me to implement?
Affiliate Marketing | | leadsprofi0 -
I need some feedback on the value of affiliate aggregators like Link Share
My company decided to start a Link Share affiliate program at the beginning of this year. I've had serious reservations about the value of the program since the beginning but was overruled. Here are my concerns: The majority of publishers seem to be coupon scraper sites or borderline link farms I am told the biggest revenue earners in our network are publishing articles about my company with links back to our site but if they are Google Alerts sure isn't finding them and a manual search hasn't turned up anything either. This makes me think these publishers are using some sort of unsavory way to drive traffic to our site or maybe even cookie traffic that was coming to our site anyway in order to get credit for the sale. Most of all I'd like to hear from anyone else who has used Link Share in the past. Secondly I realize there's not a lot of information here but I'm wondering if this passes the smell test for anyone else. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Affiliate Marketing | | eTundra0 -
Is setting up affiliate marketing on website worth it for a small businesses?
Is setting up affiliate marketing on website worth it for a small businesses?
Affiliate Marketing | | seoukrsf0