Is there a Google/Adsense penalty for affiliate links?

Does Google prefer Adsense-only sites/pages?

[berto]

A couple of months ago, I removed all affiliate ads and links from one of my sites, leaving in place only Adsense ads (one ad unit per page) and an Adsense For Search box. A week or two later, Google referrals more than doubled. Coincidence?

I am thinking of replacing my (way) underperforming Adsense For Search box with a single icon-product-direct-link to Amazon.com. (I have an alternative site-search script whose SERPs I populate with normal Adsense ads.)

Questions:

--Does Google penalize (in terms of SERP positioning and referrals) sites/pages with affiliate links?

--If there is a penalty, can you roughly quantify it? (The tradeoff may be worth it.)

--If there is a penalty, does Google penalize only certain affiliate links?

--Does Google (and Adsense, in terms of CPMs) favor Google-only sites/pages?

--For Google, is it the case that the more Adsense the better? That is, everything else being equal, would Google SERP positionings (and perhaps Adsense CPMs) be higher for a site stuffed to the gills with Adsense--three ad blocks plus an Adsense For Search box--versus a site with just a single Adsense button ad?

Any insights here would be greatly appreciated.

[europeforvisitors]

Does Google penalize (in terms of SERP positioning and referrals) sites/pages with affiliate links?

There's certainly no evidence of that. Pure affiliate sites rank in Google's top 10 for many keywords and keyphrases. And it's unlikely that Google would ever penalize affiliate links per se, because affiliate links are a form of advertising used by many if not most leading media sites.

For Google, is it the case that the more Adsense the better? That is, everything else being equal, would Google SERP positionings (and perhaps Adsense CPMs) be higher for a site stuffed to the gills with Adsense--three ad blocks plus an Adsense For Search box--versus a site with just a single Adsense button ad?

No. If anything, the opposite might occur, because the job of Google's search engineers is to maximize search quality, and sites that are "stuffed to the gills" with AdSense ads are likely to be weak on content.

[berto]

>>Does Google penalize (in terms of SERP positioning and referrals) sites/pages with affiliate links?

>There's certainly no evidence of that. Pure affiliate sites rank in Google's top 10 for many keywords and keyphrases. And it's unlikely that Google would ever penalize affiliate links per se, because affiliate links are a form of advertising used by many if not most leading media sites.

Makes sense.

>>For Google, is it the case that the more Adsense the better? That is, everything else being equal, would Google SERP positionings (and perhaps Adsense CPMs) be higher for a site stuffed to the gills with Adsense--three ad blocks plus an Adsense For Search box--versus a site with just a single Adsense button ad?

>No. If anything, the opposite might occur, because the job of Google's search engineers is to maximize search quality, and sites that are "stuffed to the gills" with AdSense ads are likely to be weak on content.

But I clarified, "everything else being equal," as in: my pages, which are strong on content, if I were to increase the number of ad units from one to three--without any lessening of content--would Google favor that? Would it make no difference whatsoever to my SERP positionings?

[europeforvisitors]

But I clarified, "everything else being equal," as in: my pages, which are strong on content, if I were to increase the number of ad units from one to three--without any lessening of content--would Google favor that? Would it make no difference whatsoever to my SERP positionings?

It almost certainly won't help, it could hurt, but it probably won't make any difference to your Google search rankings.