nofollow on affiliate links

any negative effects

[Visit Thailand]

After reading more and more about the nofollow attribute is there any negatives to putting the tag on affiliate links?

[ronin]

The most immediately obvious one is that it tells the search engines that you are an affiliate marketeer who is aware of SEO.

[eljefe3]

Besides telling google that your link isn't worth following, why would you want to place the nofollow attribute?

Let's say you have a travel site and all the recommended hotels ( aff links) have a no follow attribute, what would this be telling those that read the code ( search engines, link partners, affiliate programs that you are referring traffic to......)?

[Visit Thailand]

Thanks for your replies. There does seem to be a lot of conflicting messages (what's new!) on the web about this tag.

I am sure an SE would know if you have aff links on a site or not and while I can understand the SEO comment I am not entirely convinced as G has even recommended it for certain links.

As for why I would consider doing this. One is obviously to try and not pass PR to a site that could be a competitor.

The main reason though is that it is not an authorative site, in fact it may not even be that good but it meets your aff needs and therefore you do link to them. In a way it is almost like a paid advertisement - just a PPA not PPC.

The traffic and subsequent branding should therefore be enough of an award for the aff site - that and of course their share of the revenue.

I do not see why they should also get prime links from high PR pages.

[celgins]

I don't see how it could create any negative effects.

A nofollow in a link basically tells the spiders, "Stop right here and do not process this link."

I don't think the spiders care that it's an affiliate link, or a link to the NYTimes.