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Hello everyone.  I'm looking for recommendations for affiliate software.  I'm also curious if there is any truth in the "SEO-value" that some softwares are touting as a benefit.

Choosing a Software:

This Moz Blog Article says to build it yourself.  However, I'm inclined to use an out-of-the-box software for  advanced features such as real-time analytics for the affiliate, w-9/1099 processing, etc.

MozPerks promotes hasoffers.com which seems overly pricey ($230/month with perk discount) and OMNISTAR who just left me on hold for 10 minutes (and still no anwer from their sales department).

So I'm still looking.  Any recommendations?

SEO-value of Links from Affiliates:

Here's an example of what OMNISTAR claims about the SEO value of the way they structure the links from affiliate sites to my site. I hear a variation on this pitch from each software and none of them seem to agree.

• Does Google want me to clearly tag promotional vs. editorial links?

• Is there SEO-value in promotional links on affiliate sites or is that a load of bologna?

Thanks a bunch!

Eric, I'm really confused.  AddThis automatically adds a tracking code each time the page is loaded.  If you click refresh you'll notice that the code changes.

What do you mean the URL isn't being indexed?  Google is ranking that page for the keyword.  And I might be mistaken but my understanding is that Google disregards everything after the "#" so there shouldn't be a duplicate content issue.

We've begun using AddThis for tracking our social sharing.  AddThis has been adding the snippet to the end of the URLs on our pages and we've been finding that people linking to us are linking to the URL with the snippet.  AddThis says this isn't a problem for SEO.  Is this correct?

Here is an example:

https://www.harborcompliance.com/information/how-to-start-a-non-profit-organization-in-colorado.php#.UunCfPldVig

I want to make sure this is not affecting our SEO in any way, particularly that Google would see this as an affiliate or paid link since it has the "#".  I may be crazy but I just want to make sure!

Hello everyone.  We recently posted some of our research to Wikipedia as references in the "External Links" section.  Our research is rigorous and has been referenced by a number of universities and libraries (an example: https://www.harborcompliance.com/information/company-suffixes.php).  Anyway, I'm wondering if these Wikipedia links have any value beyond of course adding to the Wiki page's information.  Thanks!

What would you give someone as a general rule for extrapolating Google search volumes from the Bing volumes?  I'm looking at the Moz keyword analysis tools and only Bing search volumes are listed so I'm wondering how I could those figures to estimate Google search volumes.

Thanks, Miriam.  This is exactly what I was looking for.  Btw our BBB page has PA1 so I'm not sure we're going to get much link juice from that link anyway, unless we build to it like Cyrus suggests.

Your first link didn't work.

Links from these shallow sites probably won't help much for passing link juice (low authority presumably) but if they're getting traffic then you might want those visitors to see your flagship brand where you have the bulk of your content.  In that case, it would benefit the visitor and therefore would be worth doing.

As always be careful with linking to your flag ship site if the shallow sites are linked to by spammy sites.  It seems to already doing pretty well so taking chances for minimal benefit probably wouldn't be worth it.

Branding and visibility issues aside, from a pure link standpoint those links don't count (or shouldn't per Google).  Google wants affiliate links to be nofollow since they're advertorial (Matt Cutts on the matter - <a>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmlsfSqmOw</a>).  Cutts also says affiliate links should be disclosed adequately.  Now on the other hand, you're right that these links are benefiting a company that has these relationships set up.  I'm sure they're getting visibility, traffic, and ultimately sales.

I think you're right to keep them on the site.  The biggest reason is probably so that people can still have access to the information through search and other means.  As for linking to them from the site, I think the same idea applies.  If you get a new follower and they love your content, they may want to read all of your historical posts.  And you shouldn't make it difficult for them to do that.  When I first discovered what is now one of my favorite blogs, I went back and read every post since it was started 3 or 4 years earlier.

Just a clarification.  We have already purchased the BBB Accreditation.  We found it was very important to have that logo on our site and the link to BBB so people can view our report.  What I was asking about, is should we pursue the link from BBB.  They actually charge extra for this link.

For longer tail keywords with typical local monthly search volume of 50 or so, there are exact match domains that are just killing it.  Take for instance "alabama registered agent", I'm showing www.alabamaregisteredagent.com in the first spot ahead of the state department, etc.  This site has zero links in OSE (DA and PA 1) and is a very small site in general.  Can anyone explain why this domain is doing so well?

Unfortunately this company is one of the largest - they're just raking it in.  So not only are they ranking high but the pages must be converting well for them.

This is a "paid link" so I'm naturally skeptical.  But I'm wondering if the SEO value plus the usability of a potential client clicking the BBB link to our site would be worth it.

Follow up question - if redirecting a domain completely, how much would doing so affect the rankings?  I'm assuming it will take some time for the new domain to catch up to where the old domain was, but how long might that be?  And would the links for the old domain still count?

I share your frustration in wanting to be able to track links in OSE.  Someone at Moz told me a while back that OSE only reaches 20-25% of links out there.  I've just come to tell myself that if I know the link exists then I don't need to see it in OSE.

Maybe I'm not understanding your question correctly but I think a keyword density tool is what you're looking for such as this one from SEO Book: http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/

A site that is a competitor of ours is basically dominating the search results despite doing everything you're not supposed to do, including:

• Purchasing links
• Having content that is thin, templated, and duplicate - adds little value
• Owning half a dozen other sites for linking to each other (link wheel?)

We spend a lot of time on our content and making it the most useful it can be for our visitors.  Granted our site is newer but we avoid these gray/black hat practices and yet we're not ranking nearly as high.  What gives?

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the feedback.  You're probably right that testing the waters is not worth the potential long-term implications.  This certainly helps.

Regards,

Mike

We've come across an offer through HostGator from Attracta for link building.  They have a few packages but the basic offer is as follows:

50  Pro Links (text links to the site within 72 hours)
30 ¢per link,
$30 per month

Has anyone tried link building services through this company?  If so, would you recommend them?  Any insights otherwise?

It doesn't exactly sound white hat but at the same time we're curious to buy a month and see what links we get.

Thanks in advance for the feedback!

Jesse, check out harborcompliance.com.  The URL redirects but does not show up as you say in OSE.

I disagree on both fronts, Jesse.  What you said about the www is not true - I literally asked the exact same question by email to SEOMoz and the response they gave is what I provided above, of course without the editorial bit and mention of Majestic.

I would first say that you should consider other keywords including some "long-tail" keywords.  While these do not have quite as high of volume, they are generally not as competitive, and can tend to be highly profitable since the more established companies typically go after the largest volume keywords.

Through optimizing for the longer tail keywords, you will build more domain authority for your site, which I can tell is something you could benefit from doing.  At DA32, you have room to grow.  You're also not far off from your competitor, languageconnect.net, in that regard.

Type in the full URL including "www." in OSE.  For some reason the Moz toolbar and campaign dashboard don't link properly to OSE.  When you include the full URL you should see the links populate correctly.

OSE is probably the weakest link (no pun intended) in the SEOMoz suite.  Linkscape updates are only monthly (they've been working on this) and I've been told by an SEOMoz representative that OSE only indexes around 25% of the total links to your site.  That said, the application still has utility.

Most people like Majestic SEO's link analysis tool, which is more powerful than OSE.  Majestic has a free tool that will show you up to 10 links at once and has quite a few features that SEO doesn't have such as a "fresh" index to show links that are relatively new and therefore more valuable.  The UX isn't great, but once you get used to it, you will be happy to find more of your links being shown in that explorer.  Of course we want to see the progress of our efforts!

I would agree with Tom.  I would imagine dashes would be better from an SEO side BECAUSE it is better from the user experience side, namely it is easier to read.  Think about what will read best when someone is looking at the search results.

Just a follow up to my previous post - I ended up submitting 4 of these to HARO.  Contrary to what I said previously, I submitted direct to other press sources, not through HARO, so I only ended up submitting 4 to HARO.  Anyway, I got 2 published.  It took a week or so before they went through, but I got my company and photo listed along with a link.

So I think it takes some work to come up with quality information and send it out, but at a 50% (with limited statistics) conversion rate, I'm definitely going to continue using it.

Good luck all!

The total number of links is almost always going to be higher than the RDs.  This is because the domain is counted once (hence "unique") whereas there are often many links coming from that domain.  Consider your own site - your own site will provide links (these are called internal links) and you will have hundreds or thousands of links from your own site.  If you have a homepage link on the menu bar, that is creating one link on each page of your site.

So the number of links is not very helpful to look at alone.  It may be useful to look at the ratio of total links to RDs, but that's a separate issue.  The more useful metric is RDs.  If I were you, I would pursue links from different sites so that you can build a portfolio of more RDs.

It's not unusual to have 10-15 RDs for a new domain.  After 1 month I would be surprised, but seeing that after a few months would be normal.

I signed up and have been submitting 2-3 daily for the past week.  I've yet to see a link let alone a response from a reporter.  It may be too soon to fairly dismiss the service but with the many people on SEOMoz that have cited it as a useful resource, I would be surprised if it doesn't work out.

The blog link you mentioned will provide diminishing returns as the initial link you get from a domain is the most helpful and each subsequent link from the same domain is worth less and less.

The forum does indeed sound sketchy if there are links to unrelated sites.  You are in a good position because your competitors link profile doesn't look great.

I also look at the proportion of DA and PA to number of RDs.  The lower the ratio (more RDs) the worse the link profile is.  For instance a site that has a DA of 30 with 15 unique domains has a great ratio.  A site with DA 30 and 500 RDs has a much worse link profile.

This particular site is not impressive.

If the links are follow and the sites have high DA, are they valuable?

Of course this is provided that I'm using my real name, picture, and contributing valuable and thoughtful information to the discussion.

Just seeing this post now.  Does anyone find it ironic that NYT drops a follow link to JCPenny in the article?

Hello everyone,

I've been building links for a while now and none of them show up in Explorer.  My domain authority hasn't changed for about a month or so.  When does Google do crawls and when does SEOMoz do crawls?

Thanks

Hey everyone, thanks for the responses.

I'm using my real name, not keyword anchor text.  Also, I am taking a lot of care to write a good response (a paragraph or two worth of thoughtful information).

Some of the blogs I am finding do have follow links and I'm wondering if those pass page rank.

Also, Brian, as for percentage of links that come from blog commenting, I am not really pursuing links anywhere else.  Is this a problem?

Dear Community,

I'm getting into blog commenting heavily now for the relationships I'm building with other bloggers.  I think the relationships I will build with these other influencers will be helpful.

But I'm concerned that Google may penalize my site if I have a lot of links coming from blog commenting.  If I sense that a blog is spammy, obviously I stay away.  I've also noticed that a number of CommentLuv sites include a link to my latest blog post, and that has helped me greatly in promoting my posts and building readership.  I am also interested in the follow links I get from it, but concerned in that regard that (1) Google won't count those follow links (won't pass page rank) and (2) Google will penalize me for some reason or in some way.

What does everyone think about this approach of blog commenting, and in particular, including posting some comments on CommentLuv blogs.

Thanks!

Mike