How many affiliate links is considered too many?

[Gamer07]

Hi,

Let's say you have great reviews for 50 products and some of these products do have affiliate links on review pages.

And then you have user scores and you come up with a top 20 product list sorted by user scores.

Now if you have the list of  top 20 products on one page and all these products have an affiliate link (with nofollow relation and a 301 redirect) on the same page with only a couple of images and a summary of the review linked to the review pages, would this still be considered as what Google calls a "bridge page"?

Would it be better to still generate the top 20 list but rather link to review pages only? (to avoid too many affiliate links on one single page).

[Gamer07]

Thanks for the detailed answer Ryan.

That was very helpful.

best,

[RyanKent]

Exactly!

Let's use three examples involving product reviews of the latest James Bond spy watch.

1 - A product review site which offers 20 affiliate links to various sites visitors can go to and purchase the watch being reviewed. The site owner earns an affiliate fee from all of the sites so he/she does not care which site is used to make the purchase.

2. A product review which offers 1 affiliate link. The site owner likely chose this link because it allows them to earn the highest commission.

3. A product review page which offers the best ?4 links. The site owner shares he searches many sites and provides the best offers for visitors. He compares the affiliate sites and mentions why each link was selected (i.e. fastest shipping, best price, best return policy, etc). He also has an understanding with the seller that if there are any customer service issues then his site will pull the links to the "bad" site. In this case, the site owner is acting as a customer advocate.

If you wanted to buy a product, which page would you find most helpful? A sea of 20 links to random sites offering the products so you can try to figure out the best price and other factors which are important? Or the one link which you assume has a deal with the site owner? Or the last option which seems authentic and the site owner is genuinely helpful?

[Gamer07]

Thanks for the reply Ryan. So it is all about user experience and it doesn't cause any technical issues with ranking mechanism? When you say "rest will work out", do you mean, if the user experience is better, it improves user interaction and page-time (helps with bounce rate too) and this all leads to better ranking?

[RyanKent]

I apologize for the delayed reply.

Extra links on the page does not really detract from the ability of that page to rank. Instead it detracts from the value of all the other links on the page which can impact other pages on your website.

Links are one of the many components which are used to evaluate your overall ranking for a given keyword.

In short, step back and look at the page as a visitor. Try to present the page in the manner which is the most sincerely helpful to users, and the rest will work out. If you present one affiliate link to your best affiliate site, that is helpful. If you present the top 3 with a description of the differences, that is helpful as well. For example:

Site 1 link - cheapest

Site 2 link - free 2 day shipping

Site 3 link - 5 year warranty

If you offer 10 links and they are all the same, that is really not helpful to users.

[Gamer07]

Thanks for the answer.

Now that you mention the disallowing via robots.txt, I have done that after a little bit of research on google's webmaster pages and some other sites.

After considering all the answers and my research, it looks like, the best is to keep the list with fewer links and more content just like the review pages.

[SEO-Doctor]

Have you blocked all the links from being crawled? e.g. /go/affurl   - block  /go/ in robots.txt ?

[Gamer07]

Thanks for the reply

Yes the reviews are all unique and they receive great feedback from users. I don't worry about the review pages as most of them rank in top 20 and even top 10 in SERPs.

My question was all technical and related to that specific page, which is the top 20 page I am talking about. There is no manipulation involved but it is a LIST that ALSO gives the user an option to directly visit the product page (through affiliate links) or read the rest of the whole review first (which the top 20 list page only displays a small amount of the review).

If so you need to understand each link you add detracts from the overall link value of your page.

So basically, after all you are saying the list page won't be able to rank better with so many links in it? If that's the case, I will remove the product page (affiliate) links from the list and leave only the links that go to the product reviews (internal links).

[RyanKent]

Regarding a bridge page, Google's policies are quite clear and can be located here: http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=190435

In brief, the defining factor is whether or not your web page offers a true value to users. Are your reviews authentic, unique and sincerely helpful? Are they well presented? If so, then it would not be considered a bridge page.

How many affiliate links is considered too many?

Too many for what exactly? Are you trying to rank your website in organic search? If so you need to understand each link you add detracts from the overall link value of your page.

Too many for users? Begin by using your best judgement and perform A/B testing.

In short, if you configure your site to provide the most authentic value for users and you succeed, Google will not have any problem with your site. If you attempt to manipulate your users or Google, then you are risking a penalty.