undefined
Skip to content
Moz logo Menu open Menu close
  • Products
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Pro Home
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Home
    • STAT
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Home
    • Compare SEO Products
    • Moz Data
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis
    • Keyword Explorer
    • Link Explorer
    • Competitive Research
    • MozBar
    • More Free SEO Tools
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO
    • SEO Learning Center
    • Moz Academy
    • MozCon
    • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers
    • Agency Solutions
    • Enterprise Solutions
    • Small Business Solutions
    • The Moz Story
    • New Releases
  • Log in
  • Log out
  • Products
    • Moz Pro

      Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

    • Moz Local

      Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

    • STAT

      SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

    • Moz API

      Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

    • Compare SEO Products

      See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

    • Moz Data

      Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

    Let your business shine with Listings AI
    Moz Local

    Let your business shine with Listings AI

    Learn more
  • Free SEO Tools
    • Domain Analysis

      Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

    • Keyword Explorer

      Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

    • Link Explorer

      Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

    • Competitive Research

      Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

    • MozBar

      See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

    • More Free SEO Tools

      Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
    Moz Pro

    NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

    Learn more
  • Learn SEO
    • Beginner's Guide to SEO

      The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

    • SEO Learning Center

      Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

    • On-Demand Webinars

      Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

    • How-To Guides

      Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

    • Moz Academy

      Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

    • MozCon

      Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
    Moz API

    Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

    Find your plan
  • Blog
  • Why Moz
    • Digital Marketers

      Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

    • Small Business Solutions

      Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

    • Agency Solutions

      Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

    • Enterprise Solutions

      Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

    • The Moz Story

      Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

    • New Releases

      Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

    Surface actionable competitive intel
    New Feature

    Surface actionable competitive intel

    Learn More
  • Log in
    • Moz Pro
    • Moz Local
    • Moz Local Dashboard
    • Moz API
    • Moz API Dashboard
    • Moz Academy
  • Avatar
    • Moz Home
    • Notifications
    • Account & Billing
    • Manage Users
    • Community Profile
    • My Q&A
    • My Videos
    • Log Out

The Moz Q&A Forum

  • Forum
  • Questions
  • Users
  • Ask the Community

Welcome to the Q&A Forum

Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

  1. Home
  2. SEO Tactics
  3. Intermediate & Advanced SEO
  4. Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?

Moz Q&A is closed.

After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

Can Affiliate Links Harm Your Rank?

Intermediate & Advanced SEO
4
7
1.8k
Loading More Posts
  • Oldest to Newest
  • Newest to Oldest
  • Most Votes
Reply
  • Reply as question
Log in to reply
This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
  • 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
      • topic:timeago_earlier,2 years
      • 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
              • topic:timeago_earlier,19 days
              • 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
                • 1 / 1
                1 out of 7
                • First post
                  1/7
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • Kingalan1

                  How Many Links to Disavow at Once When Link Profile is Very Spammy?

                  We are using link detox (Link Research Tools) to evaluate our domain for bad links. We ran a Domain-wide Link Detox Risk report. The reports showed a "High Domain DETOX RISK" with the following results: -42% (292) of backlinks with a high or above average detox risk
                  -8% (52) of backlinks with an average of below above average detox risk
                  -12% (81) of backlinks with a low or very low detox risk
                  -38% (264) of backlinks were reported as disavowed. This look like a pretty bad link profile. Additionally, more than 500 of the 689 backlinks are "404 Not Found", "403 Forbidden", "410 Gone", "503 Service Unavailable". Is it safe to disavow these? Could Google be penalizing us for them> I would like to disavow the bad links, however my concern is that there are so few good links that removing bad links will kill link juice and really damage our ranking and traffic. The site still  ranks for terms that are not very competitive. We receive about 230 organic visits a week. Assuming we need to disavow about 292 links, would it be safer to disavow 25 per month while we are building new links so we do not radically shift the link profile all at once? Also, many of the bad links are 404 errors or page not found errors. Would it be OK to run a disavow of these all at once? Any risk to that? Would we be better just to build links and leave the bad links ups? Alternatively, would disavowing the bad links potentially help our traffic? It just seems risky because the overwhelming majority of links are bad.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 18, 2019, 7:24 PM | Kingalan1
                  0
                • lohardiu9

                  Can you disallow links via Search Console?

                  Hey guys, Is it possible in anyway to nofollow links via search console (not disavow) but just nofollow external links pointing to your site? Cheers.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Oct 3, 2017, 1:14 PM | lohardiu9
                  0
                • vtmoz

                  Top hierarchy pages vs footer links vs header links

                  Hi All, We want to change some of the linking structure on our website. I think we are repeating some non-important pages at footer menu. So I want to move them as second hierarchy level pages and bring some important pages at footer menu. But I have confusion which pages will get more influence: Top menu or bottom menu or normal pages? What is the best place to link non-important pages; so the link juice will not get diluted by passing through these. And what is the right place for "keyword-pages" which must influence our rankings for such keywords? Again one thing to notice here is we cannot highlight pages which are created in keyword perspective in top menu. Thanks

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 2, 2017, 2:13 AM | vtmoz
                  0
                • Raymondlee

                  Why some websites can rank the keywords they don't have in the page?

                  Hello guys, Yesterday, I used SEMrush to search for the keyword "branding agency" to see the SERP. The Liquidagency ranks 5th on the first page. So I went to their homepage but saw no exact keywords "branding agency", even in the page source. Also, I didn't see "branding agency" as a top anchor text in the external links to the page (from the report of SEMrush). I am an SEO newbie, can someone explain this to me, please? Thank you.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Nov 16, 2016, 2:05 AM | Raymondlee
                  0
                • RosemaryB

                  Can you apply schema to a newsletter signup link?

                  I was curious if it is possible to markup a newsletter signup link for a client.  If yes, what schema property should I use?  https://schema.org/Action?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jan 8, 2016, 11:47 PM | RosemaryB
                  0
                • DJ123

                  Is it normal to initially rank low in the SERPs, then over time gain rank?

                  We just released a very targeted page for a specific item about 18 hours ago. For the main keyword as well as multiple variations, we currently are ranking around # 40 to # 50 depending on what the exact query is. Is it normal to initially rank lower in the SERPs and then as the page ages, gain? Thank you for your insights!

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Jun 10, 2014, 7:59 PM | DJ123
                  1
                • witmartmarketing

                  Links from new sites with no link juice

                  Hi Guys, Do backlinks from a bunch of new sites pass any value to our site?  I've heard a lot from some "SEO experts" say that it is an effective link building strategy to build a bunch of new sites and link them to our main site.  I highly doubt that... To me, a new site is a new site, which means it won't have any backlinks in the beginning (most likely), so a backlink from this site won't pass too much link juice. Right? In my humble opinion  this is not a good strategy any more...if you build new sites for the sake of getting links. This is just wrong. But, if you do have some unique content and you want to share with others on that particular topic, then you can definitely create a blog and write content and start getting links. And over time, the domain authority will increase,  then a backlink from this site will become more valuable? I am not a SEO expert myself, so I am eager to hear your thoughts. Thanks.

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Apr 18, 2013, 8:24 AM | witmartmarketing
                  0
                • raybiswa

                  How to ping the links

                  When i do link building for my website, how can i let the search engines know about that. is there any way of pinging?

                  Intermediate & Advanced SEO | Feb 14, 2012, 3:33 PM | raybiswa
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                • Digital Marketers
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.