Question: Do Affiliate links influence your sites ranking?

[CokeAndCake]

Im currently building a webshop and have thought about implementing an affiliate system where id pay people a certain % for every sale I make through them. Now my fear:
People will try to use spam bots or something like that and post a lot of affiliate links on low quality pages in blog comments and stuff like that. Now, I heard google can recognize affiliate links.
Does it recognize them and just ignores them so people wont get a spammy profile or will it put my ranking down?
And also, if I would mask it with something like a link shortener, would that be a possible solution?

 

[Bread]

You could moderate comments before submission and you personally could filter them out before they went live. All aff links should be nofollow anyway, so I'd recommend making your comment section nofollow as well.

 

[BobbysBurgers]

I think his fear is that people will spam his affiliate links on other sites. I would say if you are doing your own seo and you have made a real plan you expect to stick to. Then setup the affiliate links on another domain. Or use another domain like you said to shorten them. Most spammy places they can put the affiliate link will be nofollow anyway. But I dont want other people messing with my seo. Many others feel the same way.

 

[CokeAndCake]

You could moderate comments before submission and you personally could filter them out before they went live. All aff links should be nofollow anyway, so I'd recommend making your comment section nofollow as well.

Well but they wont try to market their links on my website, sorry maybe I have been confusing:

- I have a webshop
--> I add an affiliate option
--> someone registers as an affiliate on my site
--> He spams on other blogs and sites to get traffic and money
--> google sees a link to my site on a lot of spam comments / spam blogs

--> My site gets penalized

Is that actually possible or would google ignore affiliate links because they know of this problem? And if it would put my ranking down:

- Can a simple URL-Shortener help?

 

[CokeAndCake]

I think his fear is that people will spam his affiliate links on other sites. I would say if you are doing your own seo and you have made a real plan you expect to stick to. Then setup the affiliate links on another domain. Or use another domain like you said to shorten them. Most spammy places they can put the affiliate link will be nofollow anyway. But I dont want other people messing with my seo. Many others feel the same way.

Hmm, okay thank you!
About the nofollow: I thought nofollow just means that google wont crawl your site then, but it will still recognize that your link has been posted there & therefore could penalize you.

 

[BobbysBurgers]

“If you’re a site owner, one rule of thumb I’d recommend is that if you’re being directly paid to place a link, that link shouldn’t affect search engines…. The fact is that many affiliate links go through several redirects and don’t flow PageRank, so Google wouldn’t be concerned with such links at all. However, if your affiliate link were a direct static link that passes PageRank and you get paid for even placing that affiliate link on your site whether or not someone clicks on it, that would look pretty close to a paid link to us” (Search Engine Journal) -Matt Cutts

His point was to make them no follow. But its google intention for them to have no impact.

 

[darulez]

setup a subdomain. done.

 

[aidenhera]

why not set the whole system on different domain than landing page/main page?

this way shtilinks only go for domain that is not ranking anyway

 

[CokeAndCake]

“If you’re a site owner, one rule of thumb I’d recommend is that if you’re being directly paid to place a link, that link shouldn’t affect search engines…. The fact is that many affiliate links go through several redirects and don’t flow PageRank, so Google wouldn’t be concerned with such links at all. However, if your affiliate link were a direct static link that passes PageRank and you get paid for even placing that affiliate link on your site whether or not someone clicks on it, that would look pretty close to a paid link to us” (Search Engine Journal) -Matt Cutts

His point was to make them no follow. But its google intention for them to have no impact.

I think I have been comfusing. I meant it like this:

- I have a webshop
--> I add an affiliate option
--> someone registers as an affiliate on my site
--> He spams on other blogs and sites to get traffic and money
--> google sees a link to my site on a lot of spam comments / spam blogs

--> My site gets penalized

 

[CokeAndCake]

why not set the whole system on different domain than landing page/main page?

this way shtilinks only go for domain that is not ranking anyway

Hmm im using woocommerce but I have no idea how that would work. I just saw a plugin with which I could get an affiliate system!

 

[CokeAndCake]

setup a subdomain. done.

Subdomains wont influence the main sites ranking at all?

 

[BobbysBurgers]

Subdomains wont influence the main sites ranking at all?

This is often talked about there is no real answer. No matter what people think everyone agrees it is less impact for sure. I think it does have some.

I think I have been comfusing. I meant it like this:

- I have a webshop
--> I add an affiliate option
--> someone registers as an affiliate on my site
--> He spams on other blogs and sites to get traffic and money
--> google sees a link to my site on a lot of spam comments / spam blogs

--> My site gets penalized

I do understand what your trying to say. I simply was trying to say that google is trying to make it so it has no impact on your site. They are not always successful (a lot) so I would not bank on it.

 

[aidenhera]

just buy 0.60 domain from namecheap dude

 

[darulez]

Subdomains wont influence the main sites ranking at all?

if they dont link to domain.com, then no.

 

[CokeAndCake]

if they dont link to domain.com, then no.

Ah okay, thx a lot

 

[CokeAndCake]

just buy 0.60 domain from namecheap dude

Yeah thats probably what Im going to do, thx

 

[mickyfu]

Normally affiliate links would go to an affiliate program, and not your actual site.

 

[CokeAndCake]

Normally affiliate links would go to an affiliate program, and not your actual site.

Well the problem is I dont have any clue on how to set up an affiliate program an everything. I just saw a plugin for woocommerce once that would allow that. But I think there it would most likely link to your actual domain. Also what I was thinking is that if google crawls an affiliate link that was posted in a spammy place it would land on my page in the end and therefore my domain would get marked as spammy.

I guess I have to look a little bit more into it, havent done enough research on this

 

[mickyfu]

Well the problem is I dont have any clue on how to set up an affiliate program an everything. I just saw a plugin for woocommerce once that would allow that. But I think there it would most likely link to your actual domain. Also what I was thinking is that if google crawls an affiliate link that was posted in a spammy place it would land on my page in the end and therefore my domain would get marked as spammy.

I guess I have to look a little bit more into it, havent done enough research on this

I would take a guess that if your site had no real authority, then it is possible to have a negative impact. If it was an authoritive site, I can't see it having a negative impact. However to be on the complete safe side, I'd have a separate affiliate site.

 

[CokeAndCake]

I would take a guess that if your site had no real authority, then it is possible to have a negative impact. If it was an authoritive site, I can't see it having a negative impact. However to be on the complete safe side, I'd have a separate affiliate site.

Okay thank you, appreciate you asnwering this x)