Quick Question: Affiliate Links and SEO

20 replies
  • SEO
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Quick Question Here: Is there any rank penalties for including affiliate links on a single page. I know the algorithim has over 200 factors, but I remember stumbling upon a post claiming that having more than 10 affiliate links on a page will hinder your campaign. :confused:

Would like to get this cleared up, hate being mis-informed. Thanks
#affiliate #links #question #quick #seo
  • Profile picture of the author evilsaigon
    Its alright to have affiliates on a single page, but you must limit the amount, optimally 2 affiliate links maximum per page.

    Having too many affiliate links is going to screw your seo. 10 affiliate links is apparently out of the question.
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    • Profile picture of the author TuNguyen
      Originally Posted by evilsaigon View Post

      Its alright to have affiliates on a single page, but you must limit the amount, optimally 2 affiliate links maximum per page.

      Having too many affiliate links.. is going to screw your seo. 10 affiliate links is apparently out of the question.
      Is there any proof of this? Or is this simply speculation being misconscrewed as accepted wisdom?
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      • Originally Posted by TuNguyen View Post

        Is there any proof of this? Or is this simply speculation being misconscrewed as accepted wisdom?
        I did a search prior to making this post only to find a couple of blog post contradicting each other. At this point, I'm leaning towards thinking I should just keep it to two, however, id like to know and exact limit (if there is one).

        If anyone has found something solid on the topic I'd love to hear about it.

        -Cheers
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    • Profile picture of the author dreamtoreality
      Originally Posted by evilsaigon View Post

      Its alright to have affiliates on a single page, but you must limit the amount, optimally 2 affiliate links maximum per page.

      Having too many affiliate links is going to screw your seo. 10 affiliate links is apparently out of the question.
      Rubbish. One of my sites has at least a hundred posts with 10 affiliate links per post, and most are ranking on page 1. If you want to leave money on the table, be my guest.
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  • Thanks for the clear up. Appreciate it.
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  • Profile picture of the author affilorama-portal
    Same here, limit your page to 2 affiliate links. Too many will always look unnatural and spammy.
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  • Profile picture of the author syncmaster913n
    Old thread I know, but I just had to chime in.

    I completely agree with dreamtoreality. I have websites ranking in spot #1 and #2 in google where the front page has 15+ affiliate links. Actually, you don't have to look too far for proof - see any TopTenReviews.com page, which lists 10 products on one page and there's an affiliate link for each of these products (so that's 10 affiliate links on a page with very little text, maybe 600 words or so). And they even have 3 Adsense ads on the same page to top it off.

    Like dreamtoreality said - "rubbish."
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  • Profile picture of the author shanrocks1985
    You have to make all affiliate link nofollow otherwise your website may get penalty.
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by shanrocks1985 View Post

      You have to make all affiliate link nofollow otherwise your website may get penalty.
      More rubbish. Has nothing to do with nofollow.

      Paul
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  • Profile picture of the author nik0
    Banned
    What shall I say, lately I had an Amazon site tanking and only 1 page remains in rankings.

    And guess what? That specific page has 1000 words of content and 10 affiliate links, so 1 link per 100 words.

    All my other posts with 350-400 words had about 4 affiliate links, all those tanked.

    Still I would say the fewer affiliate links the better it is, it's also imo important to have some posts without affiliate links at all.
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  • Profile picture of the author RockNRolla
    I have to also disagree with the '2 affiliate links per page' theory that's being banded around. Easisest way to get round it is to cloak the links as redirects using Pretty Links plugin and select the nofollow option when creating the links. Problem solved.
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    • Profile picture of the author gmr324
      Originally Posted by RockNRolla View Post

      I have to also disagree with the '2 affiliate links per page' theory that's being banded around. Easisest way to get round it is to cloak the links as redirects using Pretty Links plugin and select the nofollow option when creating the links. Problem solved.
      So, doesn't conventional wisdom also claim that link cloaking is also a bad signal to send to Google in that it could be a reflection of deceiving site visitors?

      I am starting a new site and have 2 Top 10 Product articles where I'd like to actually have the product images be clickable and have Pretty Link affiliate links behind them. My logic is that when/if these products become out of stock or discontinued, using Pretty Link makes it easier to redirect these links without digging into each WP post.

      Any thoughts on these 2 questions?

      Thanks
      George
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  • Profile picture of the author gmr324
    I wouldn't say you'd get penalized for nofollowing affiliate links, but it makes sense that you would unnecessarily lose link juice.
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  • Profile picture of the author micksss
    Exactly, it just makes sense to nofollow affiliate links, why bleed any juice. Juice is expensive and not to be wasted
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    • Profile picture of the author aliduncan
      Originally Posted by micksss View Post

      Exactly, it just makes sense to nofollow affiliate links, why bleed any juice. Juice is expensive and not to be wasted
      Making a link nofollow will not mean that you will get a bigger share of juice passing to other links on the page. It purely stops the juice that would be passed on to this link from being passed on.
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      • Profile picture of the author micksss
        Originally Posted by aliduncan View Post

        Making a link nofollow will not mean that you will get a bigger share of juice passing to other links on the page. It purely stops the juice that would be passed on to this link from being passed on.
        So you are saying that having say 10 affiliate links without the rel="nofollow" tag won't lessen the amount of "juice" that is passed on to the other links on the page?

        So does the number of outbound links on a page not matter?

        Or are you saying that the nofollow tag does not matter and an outbound link is an outbound link regardless of nofollow?

        I'm still going to do nofollow on affiliate links regardless of your answer but I'm interested in your response. Thanks
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      Originally Posted by micksss View Post

      Exactly, it just makes sense to nofollow affiliate links, why bleed any juice. Juice is expensive and not to be wasted
      Here's a newsflash. The PR of a page is split between all links now,
      including nofollow. So, it's just another case here of people not
      knowing what nofollow is.

      Do you people ever read what google publishes?

      In fact, the bleeding link juice is laughable. Like you care about
      some affiliate crammed page giving out PR????? Who would want
      link juice from such a page?

      Maybe you think links somehow lower PR of the page. They don't.
      Unless google thinks you are selling them to raise someone's PR.

      I dunno people.

      In fact, here's an update recently from google on affiliate links and
      pages:
      Affiliate programs - Webmaster Tools Help

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author aliduncan
        Originally Posted by micksss View Post

        So you are saying that having say 10 affiliate links without the rel="nofollow" tag won't lessen the amount of "juice" that is passed on to the other links on the page?

        So does the number of outbound links on a page not matter?

        Or are you saying that the nofollow tag does not matter and an outbound link is an outbound link regardless of nofollow?

        I'm still going to do nofollow on affiliate links regardless of your answer but I'm interested in your response. Thanks
        Paul has given you the answer here:

        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        The PR of a page is split between all links now, including nofollow.
        The nofollow tag will stop PR flowing to the link that it is placed on but this does not mean that other links get a larger share of the link juice. Of course the number of OBLs matters but nofollow links are included in this.
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Originally Posted by aliduncan View Post

          The nofollow tag will stop PR flowing to the link that it is placed on but this does not mean that other links get a larger share of the link juice. Of course the number of OBLs matters but nofollow links are included in this.
          Google has all but admitted that nofollow has been a dismal failure, and webmasters
          are just going bonkers over misusing the friggin tag. So, they implemented 2
          new things for nofollow. One, they will not index a page from a nofollow link.
          This does not mean the page won't be indexed, just not solely from a nofollow link.
          Second, people were jamming nofollow links (READ: Affiliate junk) thinking
          google just will ignore it. So, they said, okay, we'll take the total number
          of of any links, divide that by the PR. Therefore, if your page has 20 links,
          19 nofollow, the 1 will get PR/20, not the full PR as in the past. Thoretically,
          of course.

          Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author micksss
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        The PR of a page is split between all links now,
        including nofollow.
        Thanks did not know this. On my websites that promote affiliate products I have been doing nofollow on affiliate links for years which I will continue to do but not because of PR.
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        Maybe you think links somehow lower PR of the page.
        That is not at all what I think because it does not make any sense.
        Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

        we'll take the total number
        of of any links, divide that by the PR. Therefore, if your page has 20 links,
        19 nofollow, the 1 will get PR/20, not the full PR as in the past. Thoretically,
        of course.
        Again thanks. Did not know this.
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