Outbound Affiliate Links - Positive or Negative Effect
-
Hello
I would like to increase the value of my value proposition to users by adding complimentor affiliate links and embedded widgets like postcode search to my promote my affiliate's service.
I already have a great ranking....
Am I jeopardizing my position by putting outbound links to affiliate sites? Also would a nofollow tag on an affiliate link work?
I understand Google is fast changing - so what is the latest advice on this for Spring 2011?
Thanks a lot
-
Thanks a lot for the valuable advice - looks as though the risk reward ratio does not stack up in my favor just yet. I'm definitely going to hold fire until the Panda update has stabilized even though I am sure I would be benefiting the users.........
-
Isn't it a bit of an contradiction to link to sites you don't trust enough with a followed link? If you are doing it for the users benefit a followed link is best almost all the time.
I would focus on adding truly valuable links, and follow them
-
All in moderation. Google always says "do what's best for your users" but I would stick to a single affiliate link per page to be safe if this was my website. Nofollow is a good way to link to sites you don't trust and I would say it would be applicable to affiliate sites.
-
Hi Philip,
I would hold fire until Google Panda has been rolled out as there are many unknowns about which sites are being hit right now. There are affiliate sites in the US that have taken a nose dive, so for the sake of a few weeks, hold onto what you have and then review again when we all know more.
Regards,
Andy
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
-
Affiliate links and parameters creating duplicate page titles
Hi, we have an affiliate system and use rel=**canonical **to canonicalise them to the right link. Still, we see those links creating duplicate page titles, in Moz crawl and in Google search console. How are we supposed to treat those links so they do not create duplicate content? Thanks for your help!
Affiliate Marketing | | guidetoiceland0 -
Affiliate site
I have a client I am doing SEO work for. He sells a system that helps people win at video keno. He sells a system for like $200 that shows people step by step how to play and win. Its a good site and he has a ton of verified winnings. My point in saying that, its not a fly-by-night system he wrote in his basement. I know - gambling, not easy for SEO. I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner. Wouldn't this potentially be perfect for affiliate marketing? He offers a good commission to whoever sends him traffic if they buy. If anybody could direct me to a resource or two that is reputable and would handle as much of the set up and management of this I would be very grateful! Thank you! Matthew
Affiliate Marketing | | Mrupp440 -
'legitimate' link wheels
I was wondering what SEOMoz' thoughts are on the mega legitimate link wheel sites that are out there. TechMediaNet have been buying up massive news/media sites which arent really monetised (adsense) like http://www.space.com/ http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/ livescience.com and others and generating, admittedly good quality, curated content. Then seeding them with content with backlinks to their money site, toptenreviews.com which in essence is a review site with thousands of pages loaded with affiliate links no better than any of the other site out there. e.g. http://www.livescience.com/9755-bing.html due to the scale of what they're doing pretty much any keyword search i do with review in it (the last thing i wanted to purchase was a usb 3 hub) ends up with toptenreviews.com dominating the serps presumably due to the high PR the viral nature of the media sites are working with. Do you think Google will crack down on this, or do you think it's capitalism in action? TechMediaNet have invested millions in this project and just gotten another $33 million in funding recently.....
Affiliate Marketing | | idimmu0 -
Affilate Links
Hi I’m looking for confirmation of my worries about affiliate links to a website I'm working for and hopefully get some ideas of how to solve the problem of having affiliates without losing the strength of links from affiliate web sites. Poplidays.com has an affiliate program with an independant affiliation platform, but it also has a couple of partners who link directly to Poplidays.com from their sites. Poplidays wants to reward the partner sites in the same way as it does affiliates: with a percentage of sales generated by visitors. However as their SEO I don’t want to lose these links. They are from established, quality sites in the same subject area and, in my opinion, have a lot of SEO value. Affiliate links are 302 redirects from urls on the affiliation platform’s domain; something like http://poplidays.affiliation.com/?clientid=123 to www.poplidays.com Can you confirm that replacing a direct link to www.poplidays.com with a 302 redirect of this type will be a bad for Poplidays rankings? Any proof of this from a reliable source that I can quote? The affiliation platform is insisting that there is no negative effect and that no one has ever made a remark like mine before. Any good ideas of how to resolve the problem of rewarding linkers without spoiling the links for SEO? Bearing in mind that Poplidays want to be able to reward sites for visitors who may buy on a later interaction with the site (up to 30-days) and want an automatic report so that the partner can follow his commissions. I’ve tried implementing something through Google Analytics but it wasn’t perfect. Your in house affiliation system is working with links like http://go.seomoz.org/aff_c?offer_id=1&aff_id=1624&url_id=1&file_id=24 that 302 to http://www.seomoz.org/features?affid=1624&txnid=10274208218121120514 Is this a better / perfect solution ? Compared to a direct link to http://www.seomoz.org/features ? Thanks - Neil
Affiliate Marketing | | CarmenImmobilier0 -
Two Tier Internet, Bad Blogs and One page Affiliate Sites
Hi, I start a post on a popular internet marketing forum about how bad blogs - (i.e. the ones with one posts of over optimise spun garbage) - and the one page affiliate sites - trying to sell you something... (you know the ones) - were REALLY starting to annoy me and if/when something would be done by ISP's or Anyone really. Obviously google is aware of the issue with trying to push Google Plus to crowd source better search results. But with more and more sites popping up telling people how they can make money from having a niche website/page with adwords on it aren't we fast moving to a two tier internet.... How websites/pages exist purely to game search engines.... and will they ever disappear.... Sorry mini rant..... might even get some ideas for a blog post 😛 (not on a bad blog before anyone says anything)
Affiliate Marketing | | JohnW-UK0 -
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 -
Affiliate network options?
I'm looking, for an affiliate network solution, that can provide not only conversions through affiliate marketing alone, but also as linkbait. What kind of tools do we have available? i remember reading a SEOMoz Blog about the best SEO tools of 2010, and i saw some affiliate options there. Looking to hear SEO community opinions on options like this.
Affiliate Marketing | | Blargh1230 -
Passing link juice via aff links?
Hi All, I know there was a recent post on this subject but I'm wondering if someone could take a look at these links and tell me if there is any SEO value in them at all and if not, what would be a way to improve them that might not be too much trouble for the affiliate? This URL: http://www.premiermodelskin.com/the-products/blemish-treatment has a Purchase button that passes product data (price, quantity, etc) directly to the basket of the host site (the site we want SEO benefit to). Using a form method to this URL: <form method="GET" action="<strong>http://www.monushop.co.uk/products/premier/blemish-treatment.html</strong>"> Qty <select id="add" name="add"> <option value="1" selected="selected">1</option> <option value="2">2</option> <option value="3">3</option> <option value="4">4</option> <option value="5">5</option> <option value="6">6</option> <option value="7">7</option> <option value="8">8</option> <option value="9">9</option> <option value="10">10</option> </select> 15ml £16.25 </form> My question is, does G see that form GET action as a followable link? If not what would be a better method? Any feedback much appreciated.
Affiliate Marketing | | lovealbatross
Cheers
J0