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I have encountered a strange problem with google indexing... could anyone clarify this?
Actually I have been an affiliate for a website for over a year. I have been using their affiliate link..
for eg. "http://www.widgets.com/go.cgi?id=my_affiliate_id&page=product_page.html"
I just got an email from the merchant today stating that for certain product keywords instead of the merchant site, my affiliate url is been displayed on google results and asked whether I have used any redirect method to get my affiliate url in the index. I replied them stating that I have not used any redirect to get my affiliate url indexed on google and that this could have happened when google might have picked my affiliate url from various sources from web (where I adverstised) as my affiliate link is an .html link and I really don't have any control over this.
Could anyone confirm whether I am right? Also nice if could let me know your kind opinion or suggesstions realted to this issue on how it could have happened so that I can explain my merchant more clearly on this?
Thanks.. looking forward for your reply.
Regards,
Balaji.
This hasn't been an issue for us because most of our pages rank well and most affiliates would be hard-pressed to surpass us. But, the intention of an affiliate program is that a website owner creates quality content on HIS or HER website, so that THEIR site ranks well for certain keywords, and so that they are providing QUALITY content for their visitors. Then, they LINK to our site where the person makes a purchase. Wah-lah. An affiliate isn't supposed to make their money by sniping the merchant's page. They have the responsibility to put up quality content themselves.
I've had affiliates just submit their URL's (with an affiliate link attached) to Google - without ever putting up their own site. That isn't what an affiliate program is supposed to be about.
Google HAS gotten better about reducing duplicate content pages to nothing more than a URL in the serps.
These discussions do tend to go in circles, dont they? Good arguments made though.
If you revolve around duplicate content filters you live in a sea of confusion when it comes to SEO. What you forget is that your high ranks may now be due to affiliates' anchor you have unilaterally decided to convert.
The point is... whether it is your own pages or your affiliates the traffic lands on your program and the ONLY difference is the final payout. Why don't benefit THEM instead and nuke your own pages? Let them compete and outrank each other, fight for ALL your top words between each other. You will surely recieve more traffic than by your own means, since you have demonstrated here your SEO knowledge is limited... dupe content, what a joke.
I have more respect for siteseo who put it bluntly: "BUT - we don't want someone else to steal our position in the SERP's"
Hehe... ain't bad egos the crap this world is made out of?
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Webfusion AND siteseo, please make public your programs so that I tell my superaffiliate friends to tell their superaffiliates friends to, in turn, tell their own superaffiliate friends never, ever to sign up to your programs.
I don't think I've thrown around any personal insults here, so I don't think yours toward me are warranted.
As for my "limited SEO knowledge"....I guess I'll just have to live with the income my "limited knowledge" creates every month from search engine traffic.
As for the duplicate content penalty, the evidence speaks for itself. After eliminating the (perceived) duplicate content, our site's ranking across the board vastly improved. No other changes were made to the site's structure, not other links were acquired, etc.
As for your super-affiliate "friends", I think many of them have already signed up in our program (and not one left after we fixed the indexing problem, imagine that) ;-)
As I said, these discussions go in circles. There are always some that feel that if you have an affiliate program, that should be your PRIMARY marketing channel, with all other marketing becoming secondary to it. While again, it is a valuable part of our overall strategy, it is not the ONLY part.
Further, I've got a bit of a news flash for ya....when you offer 10% higher commissions than anyone in your niche, as well as lifetime commissions on every single referred customer, you don't NEED to recruit super affiliates, they beat a path to your door. Do you honestly think a "true" super affiliate would give a damn if their affiliate-coded URLs can't get indexed in the search engines? Not likely.
Think the major networks are having problems finding super-affiliates because their systems prevent affiliate-coded URLs from getting indexed?
I've got news for you Mr. Wizard...I love paying commisisons. I wish I could pay out 7 figures in commissions every month, as that would mean that 5 times that amount was generated in revenue.
Having said that...I look at it this way. If a "brick & mortar" business has a commissioned sales force, they're not about to allow those salespeople to cover their sign with their own, now are they? Why should online merchants be any different?
You can't compare commissioned sales force to partners. This further demonstrates your inability to understand the game (please don't get into your own personal history as affiliate or affiliate manager because I have more years on both than you). A commissioned sales force are your employees, whether they have signed a contract or are agents.
An affiliate, instead, is a partner to your company. He/she fully represents you as if he/she were the company him/herself. Thus, a partner has a lot greater criteria and discretion on how to play the game. Whether you like or not, you and your affiliates are EQUALS and both you and your affiliates bring distinctive elements to the company's overall marketing approach. This is critical to understand just to put things in perspective. Again, your arguments show that you do not like the fact that your own affiliates overrank you. This notion comes from your last sentence and can also be construed as part of your motivation to eliminate their pages.
Of course your serps have now vastly improved. You didn't eliminate duplicate content. What you have indeed eliminated are your own affiliates competing for the same spots as you. Can't you see that? Try this: send Google a DMR complain to nuke even more of your real competition's pages -with whatever excuse, yeah, call it pseudo semantic duplication- and see your ranks perforating the ozone layer.
By the way, mr. seo, lifetime commissions are a staple in the affiliate marketing world. Or are you saying that the vast majority of the sponsors shave and you don't?
As said before, affiliates may feel terror to see their checks turn to zipo. They keep their mouth shut and behave. I even know a guy that has lit a candle to the great greek god Asklepios at great temple at Ephesus in Anatolia. Oh My! Shouldest not thou also have had compassion on thy fellow servant?
please don't get into your own personal history as affiliate or affiliate manager because I have more years on both than you
Yawn.
Tell ya what, pal. Think what you like. We obviuously have a fundamentally different approach to this business, and judging from the # of postes you've made here, I tend to think you're just trolling for a "fight".
Our affiliates are independent contractors. As such, they are free to pursue other merchants if they feel it would be more profitable. (On a side note, I defy you to find a reputable merchant that does not describe their merchant affiliate relationship as "... independent contractors and nothing in this agreement is intended to or will create any form of partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, sales representative or employment relationship between the parties. " In the days of affiliate spamming (both emial and search engine), operating without this is legal russian roulete)
By the way, mr. seo, lifetime commissions are a staple in the affiliate marketing world
Wow...is that way off. I defy you to find a more than a handful of major (physical products-based) merchants that offer lifetime commissions. I'm not talking about a BS lifetime "cookie" which we all know is smoke and mirrors, I'm talking about lifetime commissions tracked via the database. We even track via database the customer who choose to purchase without "registering" with our system (all sales are tracked via name, billing, & shipping address to insure credit to the affiliate).
Having said all that...I'll let you have the last word on this, as beating this horse won't make it come back to life.
You do it your way, and I'll do it mine. If our affiliate revenue EVER shows a decrease month over month, I'll let you know. Until then, those that don't like it are free to go earn 10% less on a 30 day cookie from my competitor.
But, WebFusion, i dont think that your 10% extra commission or the lifetime commissions have anything to do with the topic: "Affiliate URL Listed Instead of Merchant URL".
Yes, your rankings increased. Obviously, all the links that google is seeing referred by your affiliates are now directed to one URL. Tell me, what are your affiliates supposed to strive on if not those links that land on your server? If an SEO guy has a few domains and thousands of pages for black widgets linked to your widgets.com page... and the rest of your affiliates are doing the same... then you essentially take over all their links combined. The keywords (products, etc) they are competing for all end on your pages. Again, you're effectively knocking down your affiliates.
Think the major networks are having problems finding super-affiliates because their systems prevent affiliate-coded URLs from getting indexed?
We have SEO guys in our program and they would be extremely irritated if we tried such a move.
WebFusion, last word: ok.
I know that GG shows the original links in the SERPS and not the link target, but it seems to work anyway. But it doesn't work in other engines, (msn,...).
but what I really don't know (and hope anyone else has a clue) is what happens to the PR when linking with aid. Does it only pass PR for the affiliate link or also for the main page without?aid... does domain.com inherit PR from the link domain.com/aid=affiliate?
I discovered recently that the? in the url lowers the pagerank (5->4, except for the domain root). This used remove the pagerank completely. Of course all I know is the external PR... it's hard to guess how GG is handling this. It' really doesn't make sense that?doesnot=exist has a PR.
Except for scoreman and other posters, the majority of the comments -inlcuding those of Webfusion who still does not know that the important content on these threads is on the right column, not the left, in spite of his astonishingly large number of posts- have not clearly indicated that those that are responsible for an affiliate program are indeed serious about it. Quite the opposite, there was indication that many would readily take advantage and piggyback on affiliates links.
Schemes as eternal cookies and commissions that will last all your karmic reincarnations are like spitting on the wind if the spirit of the parternship program is put into question. This spirit does not reside on the letter of any contract or agreement but in the moral principles of those who run the show. And this spirit has ways of overcoming the boundaries of any office real fast.
but what I really don't know (and hope anyone else has a clue) is what happens to the PR when linking with aid. Does it only pass PR for the affiliate link or also for the main page without?aid... does domain.com inherit PR from the link domain.com/aid=affiliate?
This is what the argument has being throughout the thread... PR is transfered only to the main page and not the affiliate ID. Google has no clue that there was even an affiliate (or affiliates for that matter) involved since the .htaccess file is telling it "hey, G, disregard those funny IDs in our links, just go here". It happens at the server level, so G is clueless. There might be some page duplication issues as WebFusion has argued.
