danijelzi - 11:32 am on Oct 18, 2011 (gmt 0)

I have started this thread after noticing that pages that rank well despite the site is Panadalized are those pages without affilite links. On the site I have a large percent of low-ranked news posts about new products found on online stores, with aff links, but I have also posts with links to other no-e-commerce sites and these are not affected by Panda. Regarding quality of the posts, its the same on both pages with and without aff links.

I've checked Google's guidelines and found paragraphs specially dedicated to aff links:

"Thin affiliate sites: These sites collect pay-per-click (PPC) revenue by sending visitors to the sites of affiliate programs, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user..."

"If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value..."

Because they don't have paragraphs about "thin Adsense sites" and "if your site participates in Adsense program" or similar, I assume that affiliate links have a special place in the algorithm.

I'm thinking about ditching the use of affiliate links in order to regain rankings, so I would like to know:

What is your experience with rankings of pages with affiliate links versus similar pages without them?