Do Affiliate Links have any SEO Value?

[gadget]

Do Affiliate Links have any SEO Value?

Does a merchant get any incoming link juice from an affiliate link? Here's my thinking ..

Answer - No. There's no seo benefit as the aff links go via the network site.

Answer - Yes. The link juice is passed on to the merchant as the networks use 301 redirects ..

.. I don't actually know if that's true, but I could see how it would be if this is what happened. Anyone know the answer?

[ash]

It depends on the network.

I'm pretty sure that paidonresults links do have some value, take a look at the backlinks of some of the merchants with them, and you'll see what i mean.

[gadget]

Thanks for your reply. I was hoping for some of the networks to have confirmed this, or otherwise!

[HarveyJ]

Click through links that are contextual (in an article for instance) count.
Technically, banner ads count too, but I don't think for as much.

Redirects, refreshes and the like definitely don't, or my TV.org site would have a WAY better SERP value than 240k

[ash]

Following up on this POR links are 302 redirects but do count in the serps.

Would be far better if they were 301 redirects though.

[gadget]

Thanks ash .. time for me to read up on what a 302 is!

[jezaff]

I always think the best way to think about it is consider what would give the best results for users. We know google dont value paid links because that creates skewed rankings to report back to users. Surely the same applies to affiliate links?

[MrCatz]

Originally Posted by jezaff I always think the best way to think about it is consider what would give the best results for users. We know google dont value paid links because that creates skewed rankings to report back to users. Surely the same applies to affiliate links?

That's a good point.

I hope we could find a good resource to back this up more.

[Darren M]

I always assumed they did have some SEO value. Have you seen the page rank some of the networks have?!

If I'm using images as links, I've always been careful to link through to the merchant with 'merchant name' in the Alt text rather than just 'buy blue widgets'. Just in case.

[ash]

Originally Posted by jezaff We know google dont value paid links because that creates skewed rankings to report back to users.

No, we know Google TRYS or WANTS to identify paid links and devalue them but of course they have to identify them in the first place it alot harder than you might think when you really think about how to identify a paid link and the implications on their results if they get it wrong (ie exclude valid editorial links and thus not ranking good quality sites because inbound links have been tagged as PAID)

Then of course you need to consider the definition of a paid link too....

[experienceadvertising]

I asked this quesition to the Google and Yahoo panel at Pubcon conference 5 or 6 years ago...they didnt give me an answer then and everyone looked at me like I was nuts...but from everything I have seen over the years, definitely no value.