affiliate links

does google pick these up?

[talismon]

We are just starting an affiliate program. If I have 50 affiliates signed up, will google pick them all up as backl links if the page the banner is on has a pr of 4 or better?

[Shakil]

how are your affilates going to be linking to you is the crucial question.

unless you are very clever, the backlinks aint gonna happen in a million years.

I rmember a solution being mentioned some months back, but havent heard since.

Shak

[egomaniac]

I have the same question as Talismon.

I just read in a very high subscribership internet newsletter that an affiliate program can increase your link popularity. The article didn't mention Google in particular, and I am very skeptical about this.

Let's say I use an affiliate program running as a cgi program on my own domain. One popular program creates an affiliate url that looks like this:

[mydomain.com...]

Since the url doesn't point to any real *page*, how could links like this build my link popularity (i.e. my PageRank)?

I am getting ready to setup my own affiliate program, and if there is a way to increase my PageRank that definitely will affect my choice of affiliate software.

[eljefe3]

I'm by no means a techie type of guy, but couldn't mod_rewrite be used so that google gets a static URL and the affiliate still gets credit?

[egomaniac]

> couldn't mod_rewrite be used so that google gets a static URL and the affiliate still gets credit?

Interesting idea, but I don't think it would help. At least not at Google.

Let's say I gave my affiliate the following link:

[mydomain.com...]

...and then I use mod_rewrite to feed the browser the real link:

[mydomain.com...]

I still have the problem of [mydomain.com...] being a phantom page. It doesn't exist anywhere! PageRank is being directed from Joe's website to this phantom static page, but what happens to it? Does the PR just dissipate (what I assume happens)? Or does the PR default to the domain root (what I would love to happen, but I am pretty sure it doesn't).

I don't really know what happens. Got any ideas?

[alpine]

Why can't one simply have affiliate sites link to www.mysite.com, and have mysite detect the referring site, and create a session variable or cookie if it is an affiliate site, so a commission will be paid.

There's an issue of trust, but any other issues?

Doesn't this method allow for backlink "credit" on Google?

[Drastic]

>have mysite detect the referring site

Tracking by referrer is very unreliable. Browsers leak incorrect referrals, some people have them turned off, older browsers don't support them, etc.