Affiliate site = Spam in google's eyes?

[apauto]

I know it looks bad if you have a website that has a bunch of links to another website. If this is the case with an affiliate site, how can you go about it, so that google doesn't ding your site as a spam site?

Should you use a redirect? Only link to it once per page?

Thanks in advance!

[skibum]

So long as you site has content that doesn't trip the dup content filters and can get some incoming links, I really don't think Google cares if you have affiliate links or not.

[WeaselyOne]

If you are using Adwords to drive traffic to your site they sure care! In that case it doesn't matter if you have quality content or not - they lower your quality score and increase your bids.

For search traffic though I agree with SkiBum - if you have a quality site without dupe content then they don't penalize you.

[apauto]

Do this site won't be considered a "door way" site in the SE's eyes?

I just want to be sure I don't get penalized for having an affiliate site :)

[eljefe3]

You'll be apauto. Have you own content on there and then give compelling reasons to your visitors to buy from your affiliate links.

Surely google knows that commerical websites need to pay the bills one way or another, and often times adsense isn't the way to go about paying the bills.