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I clicked on the link, it goes to my company's website directly with affilate ID attached in the URL. I've already reported to Google but nothing! What do you guys recon?
If that's your case I would alter your TOS to prohibit it, warn affiliates who are doing it, and dump those who don't comply.
Which is illegal. I don't see how it can be looked at as the affiliate's site ranking higher when they have no site. Whose content is it? Who owns the copyright to the page that's got the ranking? What part of the page that's ranking did the affiliate create?
Thanks shadi for that great idea on how to fix the issue, as it will not be easy for the merchant to fix the problem with the current page in place. using a special affiliate page which is not indexed by google will solve this problem once and for all, as nobody will be able to hijack the SERP listing that way. Just make sure that you only pay affiliate cicks that enter on that page and not site-wide or you'll be at square one again.
Also if legit affiliates get better placement with THEIR OWN WEBSITE, then good, because that is the whole idea!
Just my two cents worth...
If people don't want their affiliates to redirect traffic - then they should have it in their terms and conditions.
If I found out any affiliate program reported me to google for spam - when I was following their TOS - I would spread the word on every boards I could find and drop that program.
Several of my partners know about and are more than happy to get the link in google with my code. I look at ROI when I decide who to promote. Affiliate programs that used techniques to block this type of stuff would lower my ROI - and I would switch them when I get around to it.
I have studied this issue at some length and it appears that these type of links contribute to the link popularity - pagerank measurement. Google then picks one of the urls to show, but it seems to count all the urls as the same.
So don't be suprised when google no longer counts your affiliate links for PR and you drop like a rock. You can't have it both ways.
Just click on there link and quickly stop the page from loading.... view source. If done right you will see the page that is doing the redirect and also their source code.
This is a trick that was penalized rather quickly. Perhaps what you are seeing is a variation on this theme.
You should definately filter this sites affiliate id and turn off their cash flow. Then simply let them know that you don't appreciate, nor will you tolerate that kind of behavior.
If I were one of your affiliates competeing in that space I'd report the code and the page into Google.
yes, the affiliate might be able to score better than the merchant with the same page thanks to higher PR, but the page was ranking quite happily at spot number 4 before the affiliate decided to hijack that spot.
So what you're saying is that I could now goahead with a PR7 site, join an affiliate program that pays big bucks and hijack the results of the PR6 merchant using redirects cashing in on my higher PR?
Why don't we all use our high PR pages to make loads of money at the cost of the merchants then?
Maybe it is because some people have morals...
[abw.infopop.cc...]
I've got a huge project I'm getting ready to start and I'm sure glad I read this prior to finalizing our terms and conditions.
Hopefully this will deter the cheaters to stay away.
yourdomain.com/page
yourdomain.com/page?affiliate=whatever
Google doesn't know these two pages are meant to be the same. So it must choose which one to show. It will judge each seperately, and then the one with the highest PR will be shown, and the lower PR one filtered out.
You need to increase incoming links to that page
OR
You need to have a 301 redirect (after logging) from?affiliate=whatever to the page itself without the affiliate id
OR
You need to just smile because you're still in the serps!
Not just look for reasons to bash an affiliate and cancel their accounts(which seems to be very common).
They don't make money unless you make money. It wouldn't hurt to remember that.
I see no problem with them redirecting their site to that affiliate URL. It looks like that URL error is a Google/Search-engine "glitch". How is that their fault?
If you already had a #4 site and their affiliate ID URL has honestly taken over where your normal URL should be, than email the affiliate and ask them to stop what they're doing and tell them why.
They'll either listen to you, or they wont be paid.
(If, however, your site wasn't #4 and this affiliate happens to have a better ranking than you...I would just be happy that they're helping you get more sales.)
