1. #1
    Azam.net Azam.net Azam.net's Avatar Azam Marketing
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    QED: hiding affiliate links to increase Quality Score?

    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.
    Azam Marketing, 1997-2010: 13 Years of Online Marketing Results
    More commissions as an affiliate and more sales as an advertiser? MoreNiche.com

  2. #2
    Travel Pixel Travel Squared
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    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
    Affiliate Citizen
    Holiday Reviews & Travel Deals || Travel Merchants: Please contact me if you have special offers or codes

  3. #3
    ceetee is an unknown quantity at this point Registered User
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    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!!.

  4. #4
    Elaine Elaine's Avatar Registered User
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    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!
    Elaine - Children's Rooms and Allkids
    email: kev @ childrens-rooms.co.uk
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  5. #5
    Travel Pixel Travel Squared
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    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
    Affiliate Citizen
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  6. #6
    tomj is an unknown quantity at this point 90% of all sites are crap
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    Quote Originally Posted by ceetee View Post
    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....
    Tokyo::Paris::New York::Bromley

  7. #7
    DioBach .com
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    Quote Originally Posted by Travel Pixel View Post
    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.

  8. #8
    Travel Pixel Travel Squared
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    Quote Originally Posted by DioBach View Post
    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
    Affiliate Citizen
    Holiday Reviews & Travel Deals || Travel Merchants: Please contact me if you have special offers or codes

  9. #9
    DioBach .com
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    Quote Originally Posted by Travel Pixel View Post
    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.

  10. #10
    D-Mac is an unknown quantity at this point Registered User
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    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.
    David Macfarlane
    Fed up with poor quality product data feeds? Get a 100% accurate feed here

  11. #11
    3wdl 3wdl's Avatar Registered User
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    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..
    James Little | Head of Affiliate Development | AffiliateFuture
    Email/MSN: james.little@affiliatefuture.co.uk | Phone: 0207 927 6579

  12. #12
    drivetowin Driving to win
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    I think the key though is in the amount of affiliate links rather than affiliate links per se.
    Never argue with idiots. They just drag you down to their level and then beat you with their experience.

    If ignorance is bliss then some of the people I know must be orgasmic.

  13. #13
    DanielCoe is an unknown quantity at this point Home is where I hang my @
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    How about instead of redirecting them all, adding rel="nofollow" to the urls, won't this stop Google reading and following them?

  14. #14
    mainlime is an unknown quantity at this point Registered User
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    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

  15. #15
    Qui Gon Jinn is on a distinguished road Qui Gon Jinn is on a distinguished road Registered User
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    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.
    DisclaimerThis communication contains information which is confidential and/or maybe privileged. All information contained herein is without prejudice.Blog Moose On The Loose.

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