Will editorial links with UTM parameters marked as utm_source=affiliate still pass link juice?
-
Occasionally some of our clients receive editorial mentions and links in which the author adds utm parameters to the outbound links on their blog. The links are always natural, never compensated, and followed. However, they are sometimes listed as utm_source=affiliate even thought we have no existing affiliate relationship with the author. My practice has been to ask the author to add a rel="norewrite" attribute to the link to remove any trace of the word affiliate.
I have read that utm parameters do not affect link juice transfer, however, given the inaccurate "affiliate" source, I wouldn't want Google to misunderstand and think that we are compensating people for followed editorial links.
Should I continue following this practice, or is it fine to leave these links as they are?
Thanks!
-
Thank you Eric. It's definitely a gray area, I had considered your suggestion about requesting the author change the source parameter to something other than affiliate- and that's a great idea too.
I welcome more dialogue on this from others who may have some input.
-
I would think the parameters wouldn't count, but the root URL would (eg; search engines ignore anything after the "&" or "#" in the URL). I think Google devalues affiliate links, because those aren't "editorial" links - they're essentially paid links. It's really hard to say whether the links will be determined as "affiliate" by Google since the author is adding that in the tagging (that word may serve as a flag). My recommendation is to reach out and ask if they can change that URL tagging, since you're not an affiliate and don't want to be seen as one. UTM parameters are common for campaign tracking, and they don't influence the URL in terms of passing juice or whatever, so really you can put whatever you want. Those exist so you can define attribution models more effectively to learn what campaign provides the best ROI for your company/website.
I'd try to change that parameter, and maybe making the case that the author adding parameters like that to your URL is hurting your tracking (getting mixed in with real affiliates). It seems kind of weird to me that an author would add a tracking parameter like that without someone asking, but maybe that happens more than I realize.
Let me know how it works out - I haven't seen this case before so if others have experience I'd be interested to see how people have handled it in the past.
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
-
Confused About Potential Spammy Inbound Link
I unsure how my page got backlinked on this "passive DNS" website: http://pdns.daloo.de/search.php?alike=0&q=66.96.162.137 This looks to be my only inbound link, so I am worried this is negatively affecting my site ranking. Is this 56% spam score link negatively affecting my website? If so, any suggestions? Any feedback or insight would be greatly appreciated as I am very ignorant to what this person's webpage is about and why my page was linked.. Sincerely, Hayden My website: https://cashflo.org/
Industry News | | CashFlo_Trading2 -
What is the best link building software out?
currently i heard that rankerx is the best linkbuilding tool out now, is there anything better?
Industry News | | djgbshows0 -
How to remove the inbound links of a website from Google Webmaster Tools?
Hello viewers, One of my projects (BannerBuzz.com) is having linked with this Site: http://www.article-niche.com/ and we can see so many inbound links in our Webmaster account from this site, we have already disavowed this site but still it is found in our Webmaster Tools and we don’t have option to mail them as the site is down, so kindly anyone help us out how to remove this back-links and I want to remove it from my Webmaster account as well as from “Search Results” as the site is down. Currently as this site is show down from long time and because of its back-links, our website (BannerBuzz.com) has been penalized by Google.
Industry News | | CommercePundit0 -
How do I predict quality of inbound link before using Disavow links tool?
I am working on Ecommerce website and getting issues with bad inbound links. I am quite excited to use Disavow links tools for clean up bad inbound links and sustain my performance on Google. We have 1,70,000+ inbound links from 1000+ unique root domains. But, I have found maximum root domains with low quality content and structure. Honestly, I don't want to capture inbound links from such websites who are not active with website and publishing. I am quite excited to use Disavow links tool. But, How do I predict quality of inbound links or root domains before using it? Is there any specific criteria to grade quality of inbound links?
Industry News | | CommercePundit0 -
Changing Domains - How much link juice is lost with 301 redirect?
My company is thinking about rebranding and moving over to a new domain. While we dont have a lot of backlinks, we do have some very valuable ones that we hate to lose. That being said, I think we are in such an infancy that the backlinks we have shouldnt prevent us from rebranding if thats what we choose to do. I am just trying to get an idea of how moving to a new domain will effect the domain authority if we redirect all the pages? Is the best thing to do simply re-direct, or should we reach out to our most valuable links and let them know the domain/link has changed and hopefully they change their link to us? How much is lost by simply 301 every page? We are getting around 70 organic clicks per day and would rather not start from zero again 🙂
Industry News | | DemiGR0 -
Same Hosting IP - Will it hurt same type of business ranking?
Hi, I am curious if example: There is 2 plumbing company and both using the same Singapore hosting
Industry News | | chanel27
and same IP, Will Google give less ranking to these 2 plumbing sites because Google might think that they are the same company and they are duplicate website even when their content is totally different. Does Google rank different hosting IP address better for the same business?0 -
Why is Bing Showing Insurance Ads For Link Building Searches?
I keep seeing multiple (2-3 per search) car insurance ads when I search for "link building" on Bing. I made a blog post that shows a screenshot and has more details. I'm not aware of any retargeting or other targeting options Bing offers that would show nonrelevant ads on a search like this. Or is there such a feature that I don't know about? My best theories are that it is a bug, or that Bing is testing something new. Any ideas?
Industry News | | AdamThompson1 -
How long after making changes will position on Google be altered?
I'm curious as to how long Google updates take these days? I'm just getting back into SEO after 9 years and I recall back in the day there was a monthly "dance" during which page results were updated. Is it more frequent now? Thanks
Industry News | | celife0