Can a "Trusted Retailer" badge scheme affect us in the SERPs?

[OptiBacUK]

Hi Guys,

In the last week our website saw a drop on some of our biggest and best converting keywords and we think it might be down to us rolling out a “Trusted Retailer” badge scheme.

We sell our products directly to consumers via our website, but we also sell our products to other online resellers. We think badges are a good to show the consumer that we trust a site.

On the 17th September we sent out badges to about 39 of our best retailers, two of whom have already put them on their sites.

Instead of sending them a flat jpeg, we sent them HTML files containing code that pulled in the image from our servers. We wanted to host the image to make sure that we always had some leverage. So if a company stopped selling our products, or the quality of their site went down, we could just remove the badge.

Whilst at it, we stuck a link in there pointing to an FAQ on our website all about trusted retailers and what people need to look out for. We chose the anchor text “(brand name) Trusted Retailer”, because that seemed to be the most relevant.

The code looks like this:

(our brand) Trusted Retailer

You might notice that there is a div just before the link. This is there to stop the user from clicking on the top 65% of the badge (because this contains the shop name and ID number), and we also used a negative text-indent to move the anchor text out of the way. But right underneath this is our Logo, so it’s almost a hidden link, but you can still click it.

So far the badge has been put in on two sites, one of which isn’t so great and maybe looks a tiny bit spammy. (They sell mostly through ebay as opposed to on their main site). Also, these sites seem to have put it on most of their pages!

So my questions are;

• Is this seen as black or grey hat?
• Is it the fact we put in anchor text with our brand?
• Or is it the fact the url is transparent in the coding?
• Or is it the fact the sites are using sitewide links?
• In any case would Google react so quickly as to penalise us in two days?
• If this is the issue, do you think there’s anything we can do to stop getting penalised? (Other than having to e-mail 39 retailers back and getting them to take the badges down).

Thoughts much appreciated – we do our SEO in-house and are still learning every day…

Thank you

James

[EGOL]

Would putting nofollow and noindex on the FAQ itself make a difference? That should make it obvious to Google that we don't want any of the link juice.

I think that is a good idea.  That should eliminate risk with google and ease concerns of affiliates who think like me.

[OptiBacUK]

In our case we don't usually stock the reseller, we rely on a number of wholesalers to distribute our products. This is why we need the leverage, because the normal methods aren't available to us.

I'm also not convinced by the assumption that we're really aiming to suck linkjuice and get clickthroughs. Firstly, we would have pointed it to a more important page, and secondly we would have pointed it to a page that converted into sales for us. And thirdly, if the reseller even suspected that we tried to that, they would stop selling our products. That's just not something we would risk doing. The combined sales of our resellers easily beats our own sales.

Despite that, if you think that our resellers are going lose ranking because they've put up sitewide links, then that's worrying and that's something we need to address.

Yes, in hindsight we probably should have made the link nofollow.

Would putting nofollow and noindex on the FAQ itself make a difference? That should make it obvious to Google that we don't want any of the link juice.

Thanks,
James

[EGOL]

Why do you think it's black-/grey-hat?

You decided that the badge needed a link.  "Needing leverage" is BS.  If you don't like the retailer don't restock him.  The image would have been fine.

You decided that the link would be followed....  "Whilst at it, we stuck a link in there"... uh huh.

You are in competition against your retailers yet you want to suck their linkjuice and get clickthroughs to your website.

You still are not thinking of the possible rankings loss of your retailers if 39 of them toss up site-wide links to you.

[MagicDude4Eva]

Why do you think it's black-/grey-hat? I would not see the badge any different than the many affiliate-/referral programmes out there (or comparable to security-/trust-icons).

For me it would only be grey-hat if the intention was to improve page-rank or creating a large link-network. In Jame's case (the distributor) endorses resellers with their badge.

[EGOL]

(Other than having to e-mail 39 retailers back and getting them to take the badges down)

This is what I would do.

I would not want to have site-wide links pointing to me from 39 reseller sites... and if one of my suppliers wants me to put up a sitewide badge on my site pointing back at him I will not do it.

Maybe some of your retailers think  like me and if pressed to put up that badge they will find a different supplier.

Is this seen as black or grey hat?

To me, yes..

[MagicDude4Eva]

If you only rolled it out to two of your retailers, I wouldn't think this is the reason for it. There could be various reasons for the drop of keywords such as new competition on paid ads. I would look at a competitive analysis of those keywords first.

In my mind, displaying a badge is no different to any legitimate affiliate scheme. I would perhaps evaluate the reputation of the domains linking to you and would perhaps also check your own domains reputation (via Google Safe browsing / WOT / Siteadvisor etc).

I doubt that you would notice a drop so quickly (especially if it was sudden and not gradual). To me it looks like competitors targeting the same keywords (via content or paid search).