QED: hiding affiliate links to increase Quality Score?

Azam.net · 28-10-07

Been hearing a lot of buzz about hiding affiliate links. Is there any hard evidence out that shows that search engines mark a page with a poorer Quality Score if they have affiliate links, even if they boast a significant amount of unique content?

Also which are the most robust and easy-to-implement methodologies for hiding affiliate links from search engines?

Cheers.

Travel Pixel · 28-10-07

I havent read any hard evidence to say that it does affect quality score but it would make sense. If the robot can see all kinds of affiliate links on the page then it can assume that the page is perhaps created for affiliate marketing of another company.

Links and pages always look better with a redirect in place anyway, so I for one, always do it.

If i may be so bold - heres how to make a redirect for affiliate links

Dave

ceetee · 28-10-07

I have yet to see any evidence put forward, just opinions. And Google explicitly say they they don't penalize affiliates - can't find the page now. It may be the case that what a lot of affiliates do is penalized for poor user experience, but in any case an intelligent algorithm isn't going to be fooled by affiliate stratagems. Like all these links going to a redirect file, which just happens to be spider excluded - oh yeah!!.

Elaine · 28-10-07

this is something I haven't implemented yet - had the same opinion as ceetee - but the 4 panellists at the Extreme SEO seminar all said cloak 'em!!! guess what I'm doing next week!

Travel Pixel · 28-10-07

i think the problem in this area is when you have a page with not a whole lot of content and quite a few (relatively) naked affiliate links.

Ive seen many pages of ours and others that rank well with good content and naked affiliate links.

That said, mask them anyway becuase it allows you do to MORE than just stop google seeing links. It allows you to add timestamps, make a popular products area of your site or send you an email when a link is clicked.

D

tomj · 28-10-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by ceetee

And Google explicitly say they they don't penalize

Oh yeah....isnt their corporate mantra "do no evil" too?....ROFLMAO

Lets be honest, Google is obsessed with making affiliates lives harder as they are driven constantly to find ways they think improves the user experience and keeps users returning to google time and time again....plus every time they turn the wheel we either pay more for the traffic or someone else takes our place!

For time a lot of people have been hiding/redirecting their links and content as well ......as it was to avoid the human editorial penalties long before the QS algo/min bid system came in. Also serves as a neat way of running your own managment reporting and link administration....

DioBach · 28-10-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Travel Pixel

If i may be so bold - heres how to make a redirect for affiliate links

Dave

Is that your article? I didn't ever think to disallow the jump page in the robots.txt file - can the code in the page actually be read by a spider? Also, with the disallows you have in the example, would it not be easier to just do?

User-agent: *
Disallow: redirect.php

Just out of interest.

Travel Pixel · 28-10-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by DioBach

Is that your article? I didn't ever think to disallow the jump page in the robots.txt file - can the code in the page actually be read by a spider? Also, with the disallows you have in the example, would it not be easier to just do?

User-agent: *
Disallow: redirect.php

Just out of interest.

1. Yes it is my article.
2. No PHP (as far as i know) cant be read by SE spiders BUT they would follow the path through to the merchants site leaking PR so it makes sense to neaten it all up. You could also use a nofollow,noindex on the link i suppose as another method.
3. Yes it would be easier to use blanket coverage for all user agents but I wanted to demonstrate some of the spider names for newbies.

Dave

DioBach · 28-10-07

Quote:

Originally Posted by Travel Pixel

1. Yes it is my article.
2. No PHP (as far as i know) cant be read by SE spiders BUT they would follow the path through to the merchants site leaking PR so it makes sense to neaten it all up. You could also use a nofollow,noindex on the link i suppose as another method.
3. Yes it would be easier to use blanket coverage for all user agents but I wanted to demonstrate some of the spider names for newbies.

Dave

Ok, that makes sense - on number 2. After reading your article I went and did the wildcard disallow, just wanted to check that I wasn't making a mistake doing that. Thanks.

D-Mac · 28-10-07

I would imagine that if google are identifying affiliate links, (which they probably are), then they will have your domain flagged as being an affiliate site, so hiding the links now is shutting the gate after the horse has bolted. A gradual switch-over of links over a period of several months might be better than switching them all in one go between googlebot visits.

3wdl · 28-10-07

In the Extreme SEO talk on Thursday one of the audience said that her account manager at google had confirmed that one of the reasons for her lowish quality score was because of the amount of affiliate links..

drivetowin · 28-10-07

I think the key though is in the amount of affiliate links rather than affiliate links per se.

DanielCoe · 29-10-07

How about instead of redirecting them all, adding rel="nofollow" to the urls, won't this stop Google reading and following them?

mainlime · 29-10-07

Nofollow prevents the link being considered when Google et al calculate incoming link weight. It doesn't prevent search engines from indexing the link.

nofollow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Qui Gon Jinn · 29-10-07

dunno if this will help

How to hide affiliate links using htaccess

How to Be Crafty and Mask Affiliate Links

What are peoples thoughts to using HTTPS (for SSL secure pages) as the redirect, will this stop spiders following these (mentioned at a4uexpo)

I would be curious how to create the illusion that links go to a shopping cart re the spider, & not for visitors. Even if a real shopping cart for expensive advertsing charges so at least something on the site. As our google account manager says they do look for a shopping cart or secure area, without one they made a weighted assumption the site was an affiliates, amongst other variables.