Affiliate links

[BaseballGuy]

I have a small (but established and old) affiliate site that took a small hit for its desired keywords about a year ago....might have been Pandacized, but can't confirm.

The particular page that ranked has around 20 15 affiliate links, and about 2000 words of content. The content is very good, and the page isn't over-optimized.

Was wondering if any of you affiliate marketers out there could chime in with your suggestions if I should lower the affiliate link count to regain rankings?

[eljefe3]

If you have solid original content, then you should be OK. However if it looks to SE's that it is a "thin affiliate site" that doesn't really add any value as compared to other sites also promoting the same product, then you probably got hit by this.

Have you analyzed the competitors above you?

[BaseballGuy]

Hi eljefe,

The site started off 6 years ago as a thinly veiled affiliate site, as I didn't know any better.

Then my main advertiser went from gentle giant to literal Nazi Field General. It was at that point I started to create tons of unique content.

My backlink profile is weak....I haven't done any linkbuilding in the past 2 years, outside of whatever came in naturally....and it wasn't a lot.

I have however gotten the website featured in the NY Times a few years ago (link back) and a couple of other high end links. So link profile is diverse.

I just can't figure out why I went from position #1 to position #3-4. It's been that way and traffic has been way down for that particular keyword.

The guy above me....he doesn't run an affiliate site. His site is strictly informational (non monetized site).


I don't get it.


I'm thinking of lowering keyword density, and then lowering affiliate link count to 3-4.


Other than that...the page itself (internal page) is optimized, but only from "best practices". There isn't a lot of optimization going on the site.

[BaseballGuy]

Oh, and I should mention that my site has 10x more information about the particular subject and topic, than the guy who ranks above me.

I followed the guidelines and "built the page for the user". I have over 500 comments on that particular page in question from people thanking me for the information, and engaging in intelligent discussion about the topic.