Duplicate content, website authority and affiliates

[gavinhoman]

We've got a dilemma at the moment with the content we supply to an affiliate. We currently supply the affiliate with our product database which includes everything about a product including the price, title, description and images. The affiliate then lists the products on their website and provides a Commission Junction link back to our ecommerce store which tracks any purchases with the affiliate getting a commission based on any sales via a cookie.

This has been very successful for us in terms of sales but we've noticed a significant dip over the past year in ranking whilst the affiliate has achieved a peak...all eyes are pointing towards the Panda update.

Whenever I type one of our 'uniquely written' product descriptions into Google, the affiliate website appears higher than ours suggesting Google has ranked them the authority.

My question is, without writing unique content for the affiliate and changing the commission junction link. What would be the best option to be recognised as the authority of the content which we wrote in the first place? It always appears on our website first but Google seems to position the affiliate higher than us in the SERPS after a few weeks. The commission junction link is written like this:

http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-1428744-10475505?sid=shopp&url=http://www.outdoormegastore.co.uk/vango-calisto-600xl-tent.html

[Everett]

It seems like maybe we're getting off topic. Why does the affiliate have to suffer in order for the merchant to succeed and vice versa? The real problem here seems to be that you are giving your affiliates the same content you use on your own site. Either make them write their own content or change what's on your site and feed them the old content. It is more work, but you could start slowly by writing fresh (exclusive) content on your site for the most important products. This would give you the ability to test it out unless there is some site-wide (e.g. Panda) issue going on .

As both an affiliate and a merchant, I've always found it best if each has their own content. For one thing, the affiliate site sits earlier in the funnel so it would make sense that they wouldn't be using the same message as the merchant sites product detail page, which is about as far into the funnel as you can get without being inside a shopping cart.

If you are unwilling to do this I think EGOL said it best:

"However, if your rankings are falling it could be competitors (and your good affiliates) are working harder than you."

If you really want to be seen as the authoritative version when there are multiple sites with the same content, the biggest factor in my experience is simply links. Domain authority plays a role too, but a couple of deep links into your product page will make all the difference. I presented about some ways to get links into product and category pages at SMX West, 2012 (link to presentation) and also wrote a blog post about it here on SEOMoz. Hopefully that will help you get started, but there's no easy, scaleable way to do this that isn't a little bit on the gray side. To do it "right" in Google's eyes just takes a lot of elbow grease.

One last thing. As an affilaite there is no way I would agree to putting a cross domain rel canonical or rel author tag on my site that points to the merchant's site. You would lose any affiliate worth their weight in salt that way.

To sum things up for Gavin, here are your two options as I see it, but they aren't mutually exclusive:
1. Rewrite your descriptions and either give the old descriptions to affiliates (e.g. have a database with two different descriptions for every product) or stop giving descriptions to affiliates and make them write their own.

2. Build more external links into your product pages.

[loopyal]

I wouldn't do that, because it might take traffic away from the affiliate, but the main site may not generate enough extra income to recover from the shortfall.

There is no point in ranking higher than the affiliate, if you destroy the affiliate's business, but do not recover it all yourself.

This is the age-old sales problem. Many companies, when they have a great salesman, who always exceeds his targets, change the quotas, to make it harder for the salesman to hit his number, so he works harder, the company makes more and he makes less. Eventually, the salesman will stop working so hard, and then look for another job.

Good salesmen and good affiliates are definitely not a dime-a-dozen. Look after them.

[EGOL]

Whenever I type one of our 'uniquely written' product descriptions into Google, the affiliate website appears higher than ours suggesting Google has ranked them the authority.

You are lucky to have a powerful affiliate selling your merchandise instead of your competitor's merchandise. 

I am an affiliate of a couple of programs and my site always ranks above the program site and this is good for me and good for them because I can defeat competitors that they can not.

There are a few issues to think about related to the duplicate content.....

1. The affiliate might rank above you for quotes from the descriptions, however how do they rank for important keywords that have high search volumes and conversion rates?   I would guess that is where the money is being made.    If you are above them there then not so many worries.  But if they are outranking you there then they are an important rainmaker for your business.

2. This duplicate content could be causing Panda problems for your site, especially if many other affiliates are using it.  Some of the sites publishing it are likely to be demoted in the google rankings.  However, if your rankings are falling it could be competitors (and your good affiliates) are working harder than you.  Consider how much you have invested in making good rankings... if not a lot then your affiliates are fighting that battle for you.

3. The affiliate programs that I sell for have enjoyed the sales that I have produced for over ten years.  We have a great relationship and they are fairly confident that I am not going to leave them for a competitor program.  They have the best product in the niche and they pay me well.  I am one of many affiliates for their company who have been with them for a long time.  So, their attitude is....  let the affiliates to the SEO and the PPC... that is what they are good at.  We are good at making a great product and servicing customers... this is win-win.

They  know something else that is very important.  They know that they are THE BRAND and lots of the customers that I refer may make purchases in the future that no commissions are paid on.  That is where they win big time.

So, keep your affiliates happy.   Over the long term they will be responsible for a LOT of your best repeat customers (if you have a repeat type of business and treat the customer right).

Good affiliates are also really smart about SEO and converting customers.  They might know more than you.  So, if you ask them to do rel=canonical or some other trick that works to your advantage they might jump to another program or simply become retailers instead of affiliates.  I have done that a couple of times.

[SEODinosaur]

You can do a rel=author from the affiliate site to the original content. This recent post has some information that can help: http://www.seomoz.org/blog/authorship-google-plus-link-building