Damage your page rank on affilate sites?

questions about affiliate program

[Crush]

We are going to start up an affiliate program to our site. We are not going to use a package software product but rather make it oursleves. Is there anything to watch out for when doing this...should we put in? id=22 for the client or is there a better way?

As our site already has good page rank and ranks well for many keywords I would not like to see this damaged. Any comments most welcome

[Bernie]

hi crush,

you wrote "we're gonna start one" so I guess you are the merchant and you will receive links from your affiliates.

AFAIK google does not count links to your site which carry a parameter like <a href="http://widgets.com?AffID=123">linktext</a>. so affiliate links will not increase your pr or rankings.

on the other hand links from other websites to your site generally cannot harm your site and it's page rank so you don t run any risk.

a totally different case is if you link back to your affiliate's site. here I would be very careful. you have to choose your affiliates carefully anyway since they can harm your reputation.

[Sebastian]

Bernie

you have to choose your affiliates carefully anyway since they can harm your reputation.

Have you had some bad experiences with affiliates who harm your reputation, or know people who have? Do tell...

[Bernie]

sebastian,

i personally hadn't so far. i give you a general example though: imagine you sell books for children over the web. in this case you definitely don't want e.g. a site with adult content linking to.

make sure that your affiliate-system does not allow the output of affiliate-ids without your handcheck.

choose every affiliate carefully look for related appropriate content and ask which content they are planning to introduce in the future. it can be part of the affiliate contract that e.g. links to certain net neighbourhoods are not allowed.

[Sebastian]

The other way I could imagine that affiliates could damage your image is if they embarked on a spam email campaign...allegedly in your name.

[zeus]

"google does not count links to your site which carry a parameter like <a href="http://widgets.com?AffID=123">linktext</a>. so affiliate links will not increase your pr or rankings"

Hmm does that mean that if you have a page with some good PR it will not hurt the internal links on your page, just because you have alot of affiliate links on the site, like when you use javascript so the SE dont follow the link and you dont give PR from your site.

zeus

[Elizabeth Adams]

Hello, Zeus ... (re 20/904 msg#6)

"Google does not count links to your site which carry a parameter like <a href="http://widgets.com?AffID=123">linktext</a>. so affiliate links will not increase your pr or rankings"

Hmm does that mean that if you have a page with some good PR it will not hurt the internal links on your page, just because you have alot of affiliate links on the site, like when you use javascript so the SE dont follow the link and you dont give PR from your site.

Could you explain a little more what you mean, here?

Are you talking about a case where you have your own domain name and a creative website all your own and a link somewhere on it to the primary site of the parent company you represent so visitors to your unique site can get to the shopping cart in a buying frame of mind?

If so, are you *also* talking about a method of making "a parameter like <a href="http://widgets.com?AffID=123">linktext</a>." *less obvious* in some way?

Regards, Elizabeth ...

P.S. Would it be all right with you if I asked you to explain it a little more? ;)

[news_maker]

you have to choose your affiliates carefully anyway since they can harm your reputation.

how do i choose?

news_maker

[aspdaddy]

>google does not count links to your site which carry a parameter

Is this something new?

I just got email from a partner site telling me to change all my links from /index.asp?ref=myid to /partner_myid

Now I know why :)