How many affiliate links is considered too many?
-
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).
-
Thanks for the detailed answer Ryan.
That was very helpful.
best,
-
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?
-
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?
-
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.
-
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.
-
Have you blocked all the links from being crawled? e.g. /go/affurl - block /go/ in robots.txt ?
-
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).
-
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.
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
-
Spent months creating links but Webmasters not picking it up
Hey Guys, I've been working on Blast My Deals.com an affiliate site which i have an issue hoping you guys can help with. For the past year and a half we created loads of links from multiple domains at-least over 700+ which Webmasters did pick up since then we've created even more links however when we go in to our Search Console "Links to your site" it shows 214 domains. It seems like our old links are being removed and our new links aren't being added. All the links we created have an average of DA40+ For the past 2 weeks ive noticed a significant drop in organic traffic and loosing our positions on our main keywords. Our DA has also dropped from 33 to 29 in a matter of 2 weeks. I checked everything including robots.txt, sitemap.xml but Im unable to find the reason for it.
Affiliate Marketing | | kazirahman0 -
NoFollow Affiliate links from (very) shady websites will effect rankings?
Should I be worried , and if so what to do, if affiliates are linking from shady / gaming/adult websites? or dost the fact that the links are nofollow solve this issue completely ?
Affiliate Marketing | | KSafer0 -
Affiliate marketing for our Amazon Products ??
Hi Guys. Can any recommend or is it possible to build an affiliate marketing programme to generate sales from our Amazon product pages rather the the traditional way of generating sales through your own website ? Can anyone advise ? Or recommend any companies ? Thanks 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 -
Issues with centrally hosting your own affiliate links?
Can anyone see any issues centralising affiliate links across a network? Example - many of us would use some kind of redirect from our sites like abc.com/go/afflink1
Affiliate Marketing | | RaceMedia
bcd.com/go/afflink1 using either htaccess, php or javascript to redirect to the affiliate site But as your network of site grows - to change a link involves visiting 40 sites to change each of the files in the "go" folders. Would there be any net effect from using an otherwise vacant domain to host the links - so they only need to be changed in one place? Example
abc/go/afflink1 links to afflinks.com/1 which then redirects to affiliate site
bcd/go/afflink1 links to afflinks.com/1 which then redirects to affiliate site So all your links across the network for afflink1 would point to your afflinks.com/1 Any changes only require changes to one file afflinks.com/1 Assuming there is nothing else on afflinks.com - would there be any issues? Assume all links no followed and afflinks.com noindex. AND.... our redirects have been in place for some years using javascript,php or .htaccess. What is the current best practice for redirecting affiliate links?0 -
Trying to find a good B2B Affiliate Marketing Software solution
Hi there, I was wondering if anyone knew of a good B2B Affiliate marketing service for advertisers. I have a new software tool coming out shortly which I want to sell online and part of my requirements to do this is to set up an affiliate program for it. It has been 5 years for me since I last looked or used any affiliate tools so kind of feel I'm having to start all over again. As to reach of the affiliate solution it really needs to be on a global scale, failing that US and UK networks Thanks for any assistance Re David
Affiliate Marketing | | David-E-Carey0 -
In search of the perfect SEO affiliate ID'd URL
Hi, I'm building our own affilaite system. I want to make sure I get as much SEO benifit from affiliate links as possible so I am in search of the perfect solution. My thoughts after doing a bit of research are to do the following - using the # as my identifier: 1/. Use an ID like www.mysite.com/#A123 2/. Redirect via 301 these urls to www.mysite.com Any thoughts on this, or other things I should be thinking of with regard so building an affilaite system that has strong SEO benifits? Thanks
Affiliate Marketing | | James770 -
Affilate links - Google Panda 2.1
With the recent update from Google Panda would links from affiliate Coupon Sites now have an negative impact in Organic Rankings or site value? A reason for this question is because many Coupon Sites usually have poor content and a poor quality score. Thanks
Affiliate Marketing | | Tonyd230