complicated SEO question

[lakrasia]

Tweet

Hi,

I have a new site, on which members benefit by sending traffic through their link (bit like an affiliate program), by appending ref= with their id no.

I searched for 'mydomain' and at the top of the engines, there were url's like www.mydomain.co.uk/index.php?ref=6.

If the visitor had previously followed a link from another member, then this will wipe out the 30-day cookie. Member no. 6 will benefit without really earning it and the other member will lose out. Also, I'll be paying commission every single time to member no. 6 when perhaps it's a new visitor who found the site by chance, so it could turn out to be expensive when the site gets going.

This is happening with two different refs on two search engines - one happens to be my own ref and the other belongs to a member. It certainly happened by accident. Obviously if a member's own page topped my own, I'd have no problem with it, but this is not the case.

I thought of putting some php into the META tag along the lines of

if (ref>0) { print 'NOINDEX'; } else { print 'INDEX'; } 

I think this should ensure that only the short url 'www.mydomain.co.uk' gets indexed, but the question is - if I do that, will I lose the backlinks from these member links? Naturally, I was hoping to get hundreds of members giving me backlinks from their blogs etc., so this is important.

Interestingly I once benefitted because my affiliate link direct to ASOS was top of a search engine, but I've no idea how it happened, why it stopped after a couple of weeks, nor why it doesn't happen all the time.

Thanks in advance.

Linda

[getvisible]

they way I'd do it is to have a specific landing page say

/af/entry.php and get your affiliates to use that which uses a js redirect to your homepage. On the entry.php file have a

<META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="No Index">

in the meta tag section

also in your robots.txt have

User-agent: *
Disallow: /af/

if you don't think you can expect all affiliates to use the correct landing page you have the option:

use .htaccess to look at the referer (if Google, msn, yahoo etc is in the domain) and has ref= in the landing page then rewrite to a cookie cleaning file which in turn loads the homepage again.

You may also wish to inform your affiliates that you intend to do this. They won't be happy as they'll say you created the problem.

I too used "unintentially" hijack merchant sites using an outbound affiliate url hiding redirect but omitted to robots.txt the folder. When I realised I admit I didn't quickly look for an alternative. But all new redirects are robots.txt'd.

I'm sure others will give a more robust solution.

[lakrasia]

Thanks a lot, GetVisible.

You're very clever! I think I'll try your suggestion of checking if the referral came through a search engine, as I'm pretty useless at js and it will save me having to rewrite the affiliate links.

Of course, some ppl block the referral, but at least I can catch a few and stop the cookie being overwritten.

Cheers
Linda

[ChrisM]

Not sure if I understand this correctly (its a bit late on Sunday night for me!) but I had this problem a while back and got around it by checking the browser's referrer tag for google, msn, yahoo etc and if the click came from a search engine dont bother dropping a tracking cookie, so in theory the last person to refer should prevail.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[lakrasia]

Hi Chris,

Thanks - that's what I was thinking of doing, but I'm wondering - if someone clicked on a Google ad, would I be able to tell it wasn't from the Google search engine?

Some members are using ppc, so I must be careful not to wipe their cookies by mistake.

Cheers
Linda

[ChrisM]

Damn - there's always a flaw in my plan!!

[cyberbird1]

Another strategy that might be worth considering is to remove listings from the search engines when they appear.

Advantage: you will still benefit from most of the affiliate links to your site.
Disadvantages: after you have removed the listing there will be a delay before the search engine replaces the listing with another one. Depending on how many listings are considered superior to your own, it may take some time to make sure that it is only your listing that is listed.

This suggestion is based on my experience with Google. I imagine you can remove pages easily with other search engines but check on this first. You will need to dynamicly add <META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="No Index"> for any page other than yours that is listed.

To take this approach you would have to be confident that only a small percentage of pages have a better reputation than yours. An important factor for Google when it decides which page from a set of duplicates to list is PR. So if a lot of your affiliates have links on high PR pages and you can't beat their PR then this approach won't be worthwhile.

[drivetowin]

I might be missing something here but I don't see what the problem is - if an affiliate gets his/her link higher in the search engines than you then good luck to them - and they should imho get the commission on a sale that comes through that link.

If I were the affiliate in question I would be well miffed if I didn't get the commission (especially, if, as I suspect, you have not spelt out in your terms and conditions that such links will not count).

You say that the affiliate in question has 'not really earned it' - yes he/she has - they've got a site which rates more highly in the search engine than you - this doesn't happen overnight or by 'magic' - it happens due to hard work perfecting seo.

[lakrasia]

Hi,

Thanks Cyberbird1 - interesting idea - though the affiliate links are the reason I'm in the search engines and I wonder if removing the best ones will affect my SERPS?

Keith, thanks, I think you have a point there and I'm thinking hard about this. Though I have to emphasise that it's not their site that's higher than mine - it's my site with their affiliate no. in the url. I wouldn't be debating it if their own site beat mine.

The thing is - in Google, it's my own affiliate link at no. 1 (I use my link because I can add a tracking reference), so is this fair on my affiliates? It was always my intention that they would get commission for their referrals who find my site in the search engines.

If you're right, then perhaps I should I just use robots.txt to de-index my own affiliate link.

Cheers
Linda

[cyberbird1]

Hi kbudden,

This is purely down to how search engines handles duplicates. It is not the affiliates page that is being listed, it is the merchants page, but with the affiliate link.

The search engine ranks the page on the content (merchants), the incoming links (merchants), plus all the other factors including site ranking.

I'm an affiliate myself but don't believe I deserve to be able to link to a page and replace it in the serps.

[cyberbird1]

Hi Lakrasia,

If I'm not mistaken you will lose all benefit of incoming links by implementing the solution getvisible suggested.

The solution I suggest leaves you with the benefit from links that you don't remove, and leaves you as top dog among the duplicates.

Also if you build up the links to your own version of the page you can move up the pecking order amongst the duplicates and will have to remove fewer duplicates.

Something to bear in mind though is that once a page is removed from Google it doesn't come back for about 6 months. If you leave the <META NAME="Robots" CONTENT="No Index"> it will never come back.

[lakrasia]

Hi,

This is getting very thought-provoking and I think perhaps what I should do is build up links to the site which don't have my affiliate ref in, so that I might get a url at the top that doesn't overwrite cookies. It seems the fairest way solution. It means losing my tracking ref, which isn't a big deal.

Thanks a lot to you all
Linda

[cyberbird1]

Hi lakrasia,

That seems pretty sensible. The only thing I would add though is to first evaluate whether you can replace the page that is causing you a problem.

If you're dealing with a very high PR site then you may never be able to match that site and would be best removing the duplicate sooner rather than later.