If Google Doesn't Like Affiliate Sites..

Hello all!

I have been monitoring this forum for almost two years and I am now trying to take some action. I have plenty of capital and plenty of ideas and I am not asking for a hand out or spoon feeding. I actually DON'T want that because it will take away any capability to re-invent myself in the future.

My question is very simple. I am very good at spotting affiliate websites now, I can finally, thanks to BHW, see what websites are making money and how.

I have heard a lot in these forums that Google slaps affiliate sites, manually and automatically. I have however encountered many websites that are review style websites, peppered with affialiate links, doing very well on Google. Is there possibly some type of cloaking going on?

The sites I am speaking of are very blatant in how they present the affiliate link. The reviews are on the main page, and the links are in the pictures and text. Hovering over the text or picture clearly displays an affiliate link with aff ID and everything. I am actually able to find affiliate programs this way, and I know that they work or sites doing well on G would not use them so I do appreciate it. I am still very curious how someone can rank for such a high comp keyword and have easily visible affiliate links in the content.

I do understand that I may be misinterepreting the whole Google vs Affiliate thing, after all I am new at this...but if Google were to manually review these sites they would have no trouble at all finding the aff links. So how in the world do these sites maintain such great rankings? I only ask this because SEO is something I have read up on and continue to read up on but when I hear how difficult it is to rank an affiliate site I get turned off at the idea of putting a good 30-40 hours of work into a website and then spending the money to promote it.

I have a hard time believing that they are cloaked, something else must be going on here.


Thanks!

without an example this is impossible to answer...

My theory is that some sites just out-do the penalty with very comprehensive SEO.

Exactly what sites are talking about, because cloaking is not the only tool that is being used in the black hat tools, there are too many tools being used. Different sites try different methods so they dont get caught.

Its all random stuff from google, there are thousands of affiliates sites ranking in different niches. For example, just do a search for phen375 or provillus related keyword.

Google penalizes thin affiliate sites...which according to them provide no value to the visitor and exist only to shovel the visitor over to the affiliate offer. Google evaluates these sites in a number of ways including percentage of ad space above the fold, pages per visitor, bounce rates ... etc.

A review site may actually provide value to a visitor since it is theoretically showing reviews for a product and helping a customer make a buying decision.

great advice thanks