Avoiding Affiliate Links?

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7
I've been reading on various SEO blogs, that Google definitely views affiliate links as a negative. I have a site that is selling a product from that website and a blog on that website, so should I avoid ALL affiliate links, to the point of not including an Amazon affiliate link when referencing a book in a blog post. Or do you think an occasional affiliate link is alright?

I guess one alternative is I do own a product review site and I could instead include a link to it and from there have the affiliate link. The product review site will really only ever do well in SEO for the Loooong-tail keywords.

Thoughts?
#search engine optimization #affiliate #avoiding #links
  • I'd always suggest cloaking your affiliate links with a tool like pretty link.
    It looks better to Google and the reader.
  • If you use wordpress, you can download a pretty URL cloaker. That's what I did.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks for the feedback. I am using Wordpress, so I'll try a plugin for cloaking. Is "Pretty URL Cloaker" the name of the plug-in you use?
      • [1] reply
  • To be honest whether you clock your links or not, Google knows the destination page of that link so things like URL cloakers are more about aesphetics for your users. You won't ever be penalised for having Amazon links on your site, as long as you treat them as regular adverts then you'll be fine.

    Of course spamming the Amazon links all over a page may result in Google viewing it as a bad end user experience where the page is concerned and potentially devalue the page.
  • Thanks for clarifying the plugin name, I was searching for "pretty URL cloaker" too. Makes more sense now..."Pretty Link Lite" it is !
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    Avoiding Affiliate Links?

    I've been reading on various SEO blogs, that Google definitely views affiliate links as a negative. I have a site that is selling a product from that website and a blog on that website, so should I avoid ALL affiliate links, to the point of not including an Amazon affiliate link when referencing a book in a blog post. Or do you think an occasional affiliate link is alright? I guess one alternative is I do own a product review site and I could instead include a link to it and from there have the affiliate link. The product review site will really only ever do well in SEO for the Loooong-tail keywords.