Hiding affiliate links

7 replies
Is there really any truth to talk about Google will and is penalizing our sites if the see affiliate including Amazon links when they crawl your site
#affiliate #hiding #links
  • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
    Yep. I have tested this exact issue and seen rankings rise and fall based on whether affiliate links were present or not on a page. Personally, I make a lot of money from SEO and affiliate sites and believe I would be dead in the water without addressing this issue.

    Google's own internal website review documents have expressly stated affiliate pages are to labeled spam.

    Google has repeatedly stated affiliate sites are often an unnecessary intermediary that siphons off money between consumers and sellers. So you may want to also have content that provides value not obtainable from Amazon or elsewhere.

    Third party SEO experts have noted Google tends to torch affiliate sites.

    That said, there are a lot of SEO issues and for any issue someone can always point to website X as an exception and say see, they rank or don't rank, so you usually cannot point to one issue in isolation. It can be complex. There are other ranking issues that also tend to trip up Amazon affiliate sites, such as the quality of content, backlinks, user factors such as bounce rate, etc. So while my opinion is you need to address affiliate links, it is not a magic bullet if you have other issues dragging down your rankings. All issues need to be addressed.

    Let me put it another way: I never seen anyone say affiliate links help your search rankings.

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  • Profile picture of the author mikefashen
    Originally Posted by JChilds View Post

    Is there really any truth to talk about Google will and is penalizing our sites if the see affiliate including Amazon links when they crawl your site
    Look, you shouldn't be putting direct affiliate links on your site anyway.

    Instead, drive people to your list. Give multiple different reasons on your site with multiple different links.

    Get people into your email list. Give affiliate links in email. It's better for you that way and now you don't have to worry about Google getting weird on you.
    Signature

    Stop trying and start DOING

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  • Profile picture of the author JChilds
    Thanks for your reply.

    I am primarily talking about Amazon sites where you link in in the URL not on the content per say.

    I received an email promoting the Elf link deal that is why I ask. of course they say yes just buy my plugin and all right with world.

    I just can not believe that Google slams Amazon sites but then Google is for Google so maybe they do.
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    • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
      LOL. Elf Links is my product. Why don't you PM me a copy of the email and any questions you have. Probably from an affiliate.

      As I posted earlier, it's an issue. The product is a personal solution I successfully employ on my sites and have released for others to also use. But since it's my product I won't post more here about it as the sales page has plenty of info and reviews.

      If you search around you'll find plenty of affiliates clobbered by Google. Ebay affiliates have already suffered a wipeout. But if you're fine, great.

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  • Profile picture of the author hardworker2013
    Yes i have heard this happening to a few websites, that is why it is important to mask
    the affiliate links on your website.
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  • Profile picture of the author extrememan
    I do think it will help if you drive traffic in building your list. That way if you monetize and provide value with your subscribers - there will be no need to include affiliate links in your website. You don't want the search engines to be looking at your site as one big bridge of a affiliate website..
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  • Profile picture of the author Freebiequeen1999
    That was after Google's own failed affiliate program LOL

    I do agree....you should not use direct affiliate links
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