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  4. Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?

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Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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  • AWCthreads
    AWCthreads last edited by Jan 18, 2012, 9:20 PM

    Does Google interpret Affiliate links as paid links?

    If so, can Affiliate links harm your rank if they are not properly tagged with a no-follow?

    Thanks.

    1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
    • overalia
      overalia last edited by Sep 12, 2013, 9:20 AM Sep 12, 2013, 8:46 AM

      What if the affiliate links are follow but they go to an specific subdomain which disallows robots via robots.txt.

      Can those kind of links hurt the main domain?

      Thanks in advanced.

      Jabi

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • AWCthreads
        AWCthreads @AWCthreads last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 5:19 PM Feb 6, 2012, 5:19 PM

        Interesting. I didn't know anything about this - affecting the sender and receiver. I'll do some more digging. Thanks for shedding light on this for me.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Dr-Pete
          Dr-Pete Staff @AWCthreads last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 5:06 PM Feb 6, 2012, 5:06 PM

          It depends on how the affiliate links are set up. Let's say your affilaites using a tracking parameter (like "affiliate="). Now, you link them to a product page, such as:

          www.example.com/product1.php

          You could end up with a bunch of indexed pages...

          www.example.com/product1.php

          www.example.com/product1.php?affiliate=1

          www.example.com/product1.php?affiliate=2

          ...etc. Those would all be seen as duplicates. Again, I'm only speaking in generalities. I don't know how your links are currently set up.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • AWCthreads
            AWCthreads @Dr-Pete last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 5:01 PM Feb 6, 2012, 5:01 PM

            Hi Dr. Meyers. Thanks for the note and the link. I understand the first part of your response. However, I don't fully undertand the second part. How will an incoming affiliate link create duplicate content for me (the recipient of the link)?

            Dr-Pete AWCthreads 2 Replies Last reply Feb 6, 2012, 5:19 PM Reply Quote 0
            • Dr-Pete
              Dr-Pete Staff last edited by Feb 6, 2012, 5:19 PM Feb 6, 2012, 4:45 PM

              It's less common than when you're using obvious paid links, but there is some amount of risk. It really depends on how strong and diverse your link profile is. If you're talking a relatively small percentage, it's probably ok. If the majority of your links are affiliate links, it could look shady to Google. It depends on the nature of the links, the industry, etc. too.

              The other issue is that affiliate links can often create duplicate content issues, so it can make sense to consolidate them (usually, with canonical tags or 301-redirects). That's a separate issue, though.

              You might find this post from Joost de Valk interesting:

              http://yoast.com/affiliate-links-and-seo/

              Edit: A couple more posts - it's a complex topic:

              http://www.darrinward.com/blog/seo/google-penalty-nofollow-affiliate-links

              http://www.wolf-howl.com/affiliate-marketing/how-to-mask-affiliate-links/

              AWCthreads 1 Reply Last reply Feb 6, 2012, 5:01 PM Reply Quote 1
              • SlavaRybalka
                SlavaRybalka last edited by Jan 18, 2012, 10:23 PM Jan 18, 2012, 10:23 PM

                I have never heard of anything bad connected with affiliate links.

                I have seen at least 2 websites that use affiliate marketing and they are doing good.

                1. <cite>www.undergroundtraininglab.com/</cite>
                2. <cite>www.ultimatewowguide.com/</cite>

                Both these sites even have sitelinks.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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