What impact do affiliate links have on SEO
-
We commonly reference engineering standards on our site (because half our products are known and searched for by those standard names) and have just signed up as an affiliate to an organisation that sell the standards. Which seems a nice match
We're going through and making sure all are no follow now because that seems the general advice - but should we be doing anything else?
Yoast says you should mask affiliate links - https://yoast.com/affiliate-links-and-seo/ - but that was from 2010. Matt Cutts is fairly clear on nonfollow - http://www.webpronews.com/heres-what-googles-matt-cutts-says-about-affiliate-links-and-nofollow-2012-06 - but not on whether it affects SERPS
Does it? And what is the best way to handle it?
This is a typical example of a page where we would have an affiliate link or two. http://www.oakleysteel.co.uk/fake-mill-certificates-en10168
-
Just make sure you no follow them. If the links were do follow it could be seen as a paid link scheme - I know that sounds quite contrived, but that is how Google might (and has) viewed affiliate links that pass link equity in the past. They are, in effect, paid links that may help improve organic visibility.
You don't want to risk being a part of that "link scheme", so make sure you no follow your links. It does seem quite absurd I know and you'd think that common sense would prevail if someone was using affiliate links and wasn't aware of the SEO ramifications, but it's better to be safe than sorry.
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
-
My affiliate links are being crawled by Google. Is this a bad thing? Also, should I add rel: nofollow to affiliate links?
Hi All, I have an issue on Google Search Console. It seems all my affiliate links are being crawled. Is this a bad thing? The reason I found out is that all but one link was flagged with a warming. It goes on to say that it was blocked by robots.txt. The strange thing is that I've not set any links to be blocked in robots.txt. Also, should affiliate links be nofollow? I'm asking because I was recently sent this article by Yoast on how to properly cloak my affiliate links without using a plugin. https://yoast.com/cloak-affiliate-links/ In the method, they apply the nofollow and noindex rules to the links. I'm just a little confused on how to go about affiliate links the SEO friendly way.
Affiliate Marketing | | nomad_blogger0 -
Does Canonical Tag passes link juice to the original URL?
We are using Canonical tags at almost all the pages of our eCommerce website. We have various sorting options like "High to Low", "Best Sellers", etc., due to this page URLs get change with some dynamic URL parameters. To avoid duplicity, we are using canonical tag on each page which point to the original url. Also, we are using IBM Coremetrics to track traffic and conversions, but to measure referral traffic in Coremetrics, we have to add tracking parameters in the URL. So, while link building we need to share URLs with Coremetrics tracking parameters in the URL, but the canonical of this page is pointing to the original URL. Suppose we have a Page that needs to be shared with Coremetrics tag: domain.com/category-name/?cm_mmc=Referral_-xyz--izUPF8VmRng--3 This Page has the canonical tag pointing to the original url: domain.com/category-name/ My question is if the URL: domain.com/category-name?cm_mmc=Referral_-xyz--izUPF8VmRng--3 got shared on other websites, will it pass link juice to the original URL: domain.com/category-name.
Affiliate Marketing | | Ramendra.Singh0 -
Affiliate website redirection concern
First of all i want to say hi to everyone here since im a new guy! The issue: My website is a price comparison website. I create products and inside these products i list several shops with their priced offers from the lowest to the highest. When a customer clicks the "shop now" button to go to the desired shop a new window pops up telling the user that he is being redirected to that shop. Check the website here and click "shop now" to understand what i mean: https://www.pccdkeys.com/product/buy-world-of-warcraft-legion-cd-key-for-battlenet/ This pop up page is a custom .php called redirect.php. In order to create a unique url for each shop, we add parameters in every URL like this: /redirect.php?id=5030917189616&merchant=CDKEYS&game=4117. The redirect.php right now is under this setting: custom header 301 without destination URL (which probably is wrong) it is noindex, follow in meta robots the parameters: **id, merchant, game **are set to NO URL's in URL parameters in webmaster tools. If i remove the 301 redirect from the header it will lead to 200 OK but then its a soft 404 error because the page is small and for sure i dont want 8000 of soft 404 errors because google phantom will destroy me. Another setting was: No custom header so it was 200 OK noindex, nofollow (which was for extra protection from the disallow) disallowed in robots.txt Thi setting kept giving soft 404 errors in audits. I also had it with this setting: custom header 301 without destination URL meta robots in index, follow without disallow in robots This setting gave me Not followed errors in google webmaster tools. The question: Which is the proper setting for this php page? Maybe a combination of the above? Thanks in advance and sorry for the long post.
Affiliate Marketing | | dos06590 -
Any Ideas for SEO opportunities at an electronics convention (CES)?
Hello All, I'm currently helping someone that sells a unique 35mm slide scanner with his digital presence. For a quick explanation, it scans much faster than it's competition and targets photography/scanning businesses. The owner will have part of a booth at CES (large electronics convention) to display the product, and will also have time to network with others within this industry and many others. At last years convention, there was a good in-person response and a few articles written about the product, but that is about it. I would like to send him to the show with a more digital mindset, so I am wondering if anyone has any ideas for link-bait, promotions, or really anything that will help the website rank higher/get more traffic. We have tons of content ideas and other ideas that are "online" to drive traffic, but when it comes to a in-person event I am drawing a big old blank (but I feel there must be some opportunities that I am missing). If you have any ideas and would like to share, it would be greatly appreciated!!! Thanks! Eric
Affiliate Marketing | | EHuhn30 -
What is an 'Anchor Text' and does it have any SEO Benefit?
Hi - we have been building as SEO strategy but need clarification on what benefit 'anchor text' has for SEO rankings? For example - we have been creating links from external sites to ours, but the anchor text is not our main search term. I.E - the Anchor Text reads 'web design', but the ALT TAG reads 'web design birmingham'. Question is - if we wish to achieve maximum SEO rankings for the term 'web design birmingham', where should it appear....in the ALT TAG or the Annchor text'? Many thanks! Phil
Affiliate Marketing | | Globalgraphics0 -
Affiliate code in urls? affiliate link landing pages?
Is it considered a good or bad practice to have the affiliate code present in your affiliate link url's ? (as opposed to disguising them with something like phpbay) Does the general public not scour the hover-over url's of links they click? Also, is there any way of keeping customers on site when they click affiliate links? (via frames or something more modern) Or is that frowned upon by advertisers?
Affiliate Marketing | | Mozzin0 -
I need some feedback on the value of affiliate aggregators like Link Share
My company decided to start a Link Share affiliate program at the beginning of this year. I've had serious reservations about the value of the program since the beginning but was overruled. Here are my concerns: The majority of publishers seem to be coupon scraper sites or borderline link farms I am told the biggest revenue earners in our network are publishing articles about my company with links back to our site but if they are Google Alerts sure isn't finding them and a manual search hasn't turned up anything either. This makes me think these publishers are using some sort of unsavory way to drive traffic to our site or maybe even cookie traffic that was coming to our site anyway in order to get credit for the sale. Most of all I'd like to hear from anyone else who has used Link Share in the past. Secondly I realize there's not a lot of information here but I'm wondering if this passes the smell test for anyone else. Any feedback would be appreciated.
Affiliate Marketing | | eTundra0 -
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