Affiliate URLs Indexed in Google
-
We have an active in-house affiliate program which has a create-a-link function where affiliate, as in most affiliate programs, can build links back to our content to produce sales.
The problem that I am seeing is that some of the affiliate URL versions are being indexed in Google rather than the original page. For instance..
http://www.ourdomain.com/page_start.aspx?affnum=F025212&Start_Page=RaceCar&referrer=createlink
is outranking...
http://www.ourdomain.com/racecar
This presents 2 issues for us. First, this presents duplicate content issues obviously. Second, we pay our affiliates a portion of the sales so, in order to maximize profitability, we'd like the indexed pages to be the original version.
What's the best way to handle this? I want to make sure that affiliates continue to get credit for links from their sites but search engine links should go to the original versions.
-
Thanks so much for the responses, guys. You've reaffirmed my suspicions. Someone had suggested using a 301 but I believe that method could potentially interfere with the affiliate tracking.
-
I would suggest at least adding those variables in your Google Webmaster Tools account to help Google understand which query strings have an impact on changing content on a page versus the variables that are only associated with affiliates.
In GWT, go to "Configuration" in the left menu, then "URL Parameters"
Scott
-
I agree with Tom wholeheartedly
-
You should setup rel=canonical tags to be automatically added to each of the affiliate pages that are duplicates of your main page. This basically tells Google that your original URL without affiliate parameters is the authoritative version of the content and that all other pages should not be indexed above the canonical version.
You should also probably add a query string to tell Google Webmaster Tools to ignore URL's that contain your affiliate query parameter. This will make sure that Webmaster Tools is setup correctly so you aren't getting hit for duplicate content.
Hope this helps!
-
Hi there
Assuming that the affiliate URL points to the same page (http://www.ourdomain.com/racecar), so there is only one page that exists, then adding a rel=canonical tag should fix this problem.
On the http://www.ourdomain.com/racecarpage, add this code to the tag:
rel="canonical" href="http://www.ourdomain.com/racecar" />
This will tell Google that any other versions of this page should not exist and that the http://www.ourdomain.com/racecar page is the original that should be ranked. It is considered a strong signal (not a rule) by Google, but I've very rarely seen it not work.
Now, if the affiliate URL actually goes to a duplicate version of the page (so there are 2 pages), I would simply add some meta data to tell Google not to index the page. You can do that with this in your page's code:
Hope this helps to answer your question.
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
-
How do I easily no-follow my affiliate links?
Hi, I am in the process of setting up an affiliate marketing campaign for my site. I have done a bit of research and understand that it is safest in terms of SEO to add no-follow to the links from the affiliate sites. What is the easiest and simplest way to implement this?
Affiliate Marketing | | whiteonlySEO2 -
Any good Pay Per Click Networks other than Google and Bing ???
Hi Guys Can anyone recommend any good Pay Per Click Networks other than Google and Bing where you can target customers via keywords and in the same manner as Google ?? Google is becoming way to expensive for us and so we need help looking at other pay per per click networks Thank you for any help Gareth
Affiliate Marketing | | GAZ090 -
Affiliate Marketing in Australia
Hello Guys My website is BannerBuzz.com.au I'm Looking for Best Affiliate Marketing Websites In Australia and I've Researched and found the following Websites for the same. http://www.clixgalore.com.au/
Affiliate Marketing | | CommercePundit
http://www.jackmedia.com/
http://www.commissionfactory.com.au/ So I Need your valuable opinions on which website I can get maximum exposure in Affiliate Marketing. Please Suggest. Thanks in Advance. Thanks Prabhakar0 -
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
Affiliate Marketing | | Zippy-Bungle0 -
How to rank in google local listings with multiple entities?
I actually have a portal with multiple listings from different users. Every listing is a physical shop with a different address, but more than the half of them doesn't have a website. I was thinking on creating a local business for them and then add a link to my website in the section where google asks for your web address. Does anyone already made something similar? does google allows links to inner pages and from multiple domains? Do you have any other and better idea on how to show in local results if you're like an affiliate and not the direct owner of the shop? With google local listings crowding the serps it should be interesting to know how to fit in there.
Affiliate Marketing | | mememax0 -
Please recommend an affiliate program
I'm a bit surprised there doesn't seem to be a lot of info on their already on SEOMoz, so I'd appreciate any insight into this for a client of mine who is a currently a startup There are lots of options from massive brand names like Google and Amazon right down to countless services I've never heard before. For a smaller start-up with a technical edge. specifically service subscriptions for the webcam / video camera type of market, what would be an effective and cost friendly options to explore? Any shared experience is very appreciated. Here is a list that pretty well captures the top 10, so these are all under consideration: http://www.problogger.net/archives/category/affiliate-programs/ Cheers, Chris
Affiliate Marketing | | cbubinas0 -
How many characters will Google read in a header space on a page?
We heard that Google will read about 2,000 characters in a page header. We are using DoubleClick and need to insert more than 2,000 characters in each page header. Any insight?! Thanks!
Affiliate Marketing | | theideapeople0 -
Passing Google Analytics Variables Through Javascript?
Alright so here's my situation and hopefully someone can help... I want to be able to pass Google Analytics variables onto my affiliate links so I have some better conversion tracking data (not PPC traffic so no easy dynamic keyword insertion variables). I want to do something like this: User searches "keyword" in Google > User lands on mysite.com > search data is assigned to global variables that I can use in my affiliate link redirect script. afflink.com/?id=123&keyword=[GA keyword variable] Anybody know how I would go about doing that? I've seen other Non-GA tracking scripts do this but I can't figure it out here and it's driving me crazy! Thanks,
Affiliate Marketing | | drewhammond
Drew EDIT: Just figured it out after a lot of guess and testing... I'm not sure if the way I'm doing it is the fastest, most optimized way but it works. Solution: I can pull the GA cookie and break it down to retrieve the keyword using PHP. For anyone searching for this in the future, here's how I did it: $gacookie = $_COOKIE['__utmz'];
$keyword = substr(strstr($gacookie, 'utmctr='),7); ?> Then I can use the $keyword variable wherever I need it. I haven't actually tested this on a live site yet but everything is working fine as of right now. If anyone has a better solution please feel free to answer.0