gford - 3:50 pm on Apr 18, 2011 (gmt 0)

Hi All,

I had a site take a hit on the last go round with the Farmer world wide update and thought it worthy of posting as a new thread here.

The Problem: I have a reviews site that has tons of content written by my staff, lots of comments from real users on the post (the biggest begin over 750 comments to 1 post), etc.

But on these review pages I have multiple ways to generated revenue:
1. Adsense - OK, this is fine I am sure.
2. I sell a product through an affiliate. This is where the problem begins I am thinking and I have 3 ways of doing affiliate links.

2a. Amazon - straight forward html code taken from amazon associate account, should be fine...but who knows

2b. url shortener to an affiliate landing page using bit.ly, tinyurl, goo.gl, etc.. -- Is this a doorway? IMO no, as it seems no different than an adsense ad that goes to a page that sells a product 100% related to my page.

2c. For one particular product line, and this one seems to have got hammered the hardest of the whole site, I would do a link to another domain like this: someotherdomain.com/go.php?urltogotohere

I set this up because url shorteners would still show the referring page and I really didn't want the referring page to be known for my own private reasons, but nothing shady. Just "self preservation". Now THIS I believe is being considered a doorway page.

I believe links directly to affiliate pages, URL shortners, and of course a redirect through a middle-man domain are all "Technically" doorway pages and a form of penalty now perhaps?

I do believe the degree of penalty is different
1. Directly to affiliate site (e.g. amazon,etc..) lowest
2. url shorteners -- middle of the pack
3. middleman domain - leading the pack

All of this was to NOT deceive the customer but to stop other bad behaviour.

What is everyone's opinion on this?

TIA