Does the number of affiliate links of a site effect SEO?

by 10 replies
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Hey guys, just something I've been wondering.

I have a website which, by nature, offers many options to visitors and therefore includes quite a few affiliate links.

I was wondering if Google picks up on this and punishes for it? I'm not spamming or creating a dead affiliate site, my site is (attempting) to be authority.

Cheers.
#search engine optimization #affiliate #effect #links #number #seo #site
  • Yes, it does.

    Content that is awash with links looks spammy. Google doesn't care about why.

    Each link you add to the page degrades the total link-value of that page. Basically, the more links on your site, the more Google will wonder whether it's a bridge page.

    Let's say Google prefers thick soup over thin. Unique content is milk, useful information is the potatoes, and links are water.

    This is one reason I like Amazon, although I know that many people here hate them. I don't care what people buy once they hit Amazon. I just need them to go through my 1 or 2 links to the site.
    • [1] reply
    • Would 6 or 7 affiliate links in a 1300 word article be considered excessive?
      • [3] replies
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Try cloaking your affiliate links with a 301 of your own domain and set your links to nofollow.
    • [2] replies
    • Has nothing to do with the number of affiliate links in some proportion.

      I don't know why people keep shuffling chairs on the titanic, or looking under
      the same rocks.

      If google hates affiliate links, then with one they will only hate it a little? And a
      lot of affiliate links they will hate it a lot? So you if you can keep the hate down,
      that's sucess? Or keep them in the middle, and you have mediocre success?

      Look at what you are affiliate-linking to. Is it junk? There's your answer.

      If some of your so-called affilliate "stuff" was great, nobody would ever ask this
      question.

      Paul
    • There's your solution right there
  • why not link the page you are wanting to promote to another page deeper inside your website, like a page you created to review the product yourself....then have your affiliate link on that review page?
    • [1] reply
    • Was coming here to say this exact same thing, with an example of my own.

      In my case, I have a table on my home page that shows various products I review on my site. For quite a while I had only amazon affiliate links in said table. I decided to do a test by changing all those links to point to inner pages of my site. I removed ALL affiliate links from my main page. Within 3 days a number of my important keywords jumped from page 2 and 3 all the way to the top of page 1 in Google search. Some are sitting on the top spot to this day. Others are hanging around in the top 5. In all, I removed about 30 affiliate links and pointed to my other pages.

      Does google hate affiliate links? I'm still not sure, but that change had a huge positive effect on my SERPS, as well as traffic and commissions. I also saw a boost for keywords on my inner pages.

      Your mileage may vary, but it certainly worked for me.
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