Affiliate ads in blog posts

[LarryC]

I'm wondering if placing affiliate ads in my blog posts hurts their SEO value, especially with Google's new algorhithms. It seems logical to include a link to a relevant Amazon or Clickbank product if I'm writing about a certain topic anyway -not talking about review posts here. I just wonder if having any kind of ad is a red flag that labels the post as low quality for SEO purposes. Obviously it's nice to make money from blog posts, but right now I'm more interested in building traffic and authority for certain sites.

[kaedus]

If you do nothing to cloak the link, it can hurt your SEO as Google will count it as an advertisement and blogs that are spammed out with ads are getting dinged a little bit these days.

The best thing to do is use some type of redirect to cloak where the link is going to. There are WordPress plugins that will do this for you. You can find some by doing a simple Google search.

[warner444]

Part of the Panda update was about sites with too much advertising. Not sure how much advertising they consider too much. This may have been discussed in Google Webmaster forums or elsewhere there could be a definition.

[Chris Cole]

Originally Posted by kaedus

If you do nothing to cloak the link, it can hurt your SEO as Google will count it as an advertisement and blogs that are spammed out with ads are getting dinged a little bit these days.

The best thing to do is use some type of redirect to cloak where the link is going to. There are WordPress plugins that will do this for you. You can find some by doing a simple Google search.

I have sites that are in number one for several different keywords each and the AFF links are in no way cloaked. I havent bothered to cloak and the site still ranks.

Reason - Good on-page SEO, followed by a well planned off-page campaign, and then executed accordingly, as time and effort does pay off.

I do not spend my time worrying about what google thinks, why try to hide from them?

[LarryC]

I understand the strategy behind cloaking links. However, in some cases I think it actually improves the quality of a post to have something like relevant Amazon products visible -though I don't know if Google agrees.

[kaedus]

Originally Posted by Chris Cole

I have sites that are in number one for several different keywords each and the AFF links are in no way cloaked. I havent bothered to cloak and the site still ranks.

Reason - Good on-page SEO, followed by a well planned off-page campaign, and then executed accordingly, as time and effort does pay off.

I do not spend my time worrying about what google thinks, why try to hide from them?

Where did I say that you couldn't rank unless you cloaked your links? You can. I'm saying that you can potentially rank easier if you do cloak them. I've tested this. Others have tested this. Also, if you are running shady stuff then sometimes you need to worry about what Google thinks. If you are doing it all legit, congrats. Give yourself a pat on the back and my bank account thanks you as I outrank your sites with automation.

[kaedus]

Originally Posted by LarryC

I understand the strategy behind cloaking links. However, in some cases I think it actually improves the quality of a post to have something like relevant Amazon products visible -though I don't know if Google agrees.

There is no doubt that linking out to authority sites is a good strategy. The question is whether or not linking out to an authority site through an affiliate link helps. I generally will cloak the affiliate link and link out to a non-affiliate page. As long as you are linking out the right stuff, you shouldn't see any drop in conversions. Must test it thought on your own stuff to see if it works for you.

[Chris Cole]

Originally Posted by kaedus

Where did I say that you couldn't rank unless you cloaked your links? You can. I'm saying that you can potentially rank easier if you do cloak them. I've tested this. Others have tested this. Also, if you are running shady stuff then sometimes you need to worry about what Google thinks. If you are doing it all legit, congrats. Give yourself a pat on the back and my bank account thanks you as I outrank your sites with automation.

Who says I don't automate, or that your outranking me ?

An no, i'm not going to compare wallets, mine is too heavy ...

[AnnaSEO]

Placing affiliate links in blog posts will not cause any problem to seo Unless you use the same affiliate links in all the posts.