Do affiliate links hurt your serps?
- Thread starter lykathe
- Start date
lykathe
Regular Member
- Oct 23, 2009
- 470
- 123
Whaa? Really? Even if I cloak them? Wtf haha
cbnoob
Senior Member
- Sep 27, 2010
- 969
- 464
Yeah, from my experience. It's best to use an optin box to get the email and send them the link in the emails. This will not hurt you.
Or you can create a separate page with aff link and link from your high traffic page to this new page.
lykathe
Regular Member
- Oct 23, 2009
- 470
- 123
Cool, that's definitely my situation. Thanks man.
cbnoob
Senior Member
- Sep 27, 2010
- 969
- 464
I had 2 blogs with unique content. They ranked high for quite competitive keywords. Once I put the banner link to clickbank product (cloaked), the sites dropped to no where and when I remove the ads, they came back after a month or so. (it's not a dance, I know) but it could be my sole situation, yours might be different.
Try it out and share your result.
ajithrocksca
Senior Member
- Dec 23, 2010
- 1,104
- 595
Come on.. there is no way an affiliate link in your page harm your SERPs. If your site is junk and the sole purpose of your site to promote affiliate links, then even if you remove all your affiliate links you cannot rank.
1) Focus more on web metrics - like loading time, bounce rate, navigation and stuff.
2) Give some useful information to the user.
3) Place your affiliate link at the bottom.
These things should you and you need not worry about promoting your affiliate links.
1) Focus more on web metrics - like loading time, bounce rate, navigation and stuff.
2) Give some useful information to the user.
3) Place your affiliate link at the bottom.
These things should you and you need not worry about promoting your affiliate links.
From your boy jakeruston:
Cloaking is NOT a good idea, you'll get penalized if Google notices.
The easiest way (And this is what I do) is just to make a folder on your site and then create files in it which redirect to the affiliate link.
Eg. /redirect/productname.html --> your affiliate link
Then, you can just block the redirect folder using a robots.txt file by using:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /redirect/
And then just link to your redirect pages instead and everything should work fineHope this helps.
yerrot1
Junior Member
- Jul 9, 2010
- 106
- 17
Absolutely right. I have plenty sites that rank high with unmasked aff links, but I do like to use the Pretty Links plugin.
LBrown
Senior Member
- Mar 22, 2011
- 1,108
- 1,842
I think it depends a lot on the niche. There are some niches where affiliate links are a red flag that the site is spam. Other niches, you expect to see affiliate links.
On some of my sites I cloak and on others I don't. I am able to rank either way. All of my sites are in physical product niches.
On some of my sites I cloak and on others I don't. I am able to rank either way. All of my sites are in physical product niches.
yerrot1
Junior Member
- Jul 9, 2010
- 106
- 17
Yeah, that makes sense.
washington2010
Regular Member
- Apr 1, 2011
- 380
- 85
edit: wrong reply
I would recommend to put a nofollow on affiliate links. A nofollow will not hurt. I did some tests and i am suspicious with affiliate links. Once i decided to install a plugin that would turn keywords into links. So, i had at one point 400 affiliate links on my website. I have witnessed a drop in ranking after that. I always wonder if it was related to the affiliate links.
Don't take any risks. At least, i am sure that nofollow does not hurt. By the way, i have also ******** reciprocal outcoming links and other links and they are ok.
Don't take any risks. At least, i am sure that nofollow does not hurt. By the way, i have also ******** reciprocal outcoming links and other links and they are ok.
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