Are Affiliate Images On My Site Affecting Google Ranking?

[c41lum]

Hi There,

I operate a widget-portal site that uses images from affiliate websites.

Over the past 6 months it’s became more and more apparent that anyone who uses the affiliate images has had a drop in the natural G listings.

We have unique content on every page the only out influence on the page is the images as they reside on the affiliates server.

Could these affiliate images really be doing so much damage or is it me being paranoid.

[tedster]

I can't say with 100% certainty, but this wouldn't surprise me, either. Google is very wary of affiliate sites and wants them to add significant and unique value when they appear in the SERPs, over and above "default affiliate content". So serving anything at all from the affiliate's server might at least raise a flag.

Here's a related thread from last year. Although not directly about images, Google's Adam Lasnik posted in that thread about Google's intentions with regard to affiliate sites, and perhaps you can to some degree, read between the lines:

Thin Affiliate Pages [webmasterworld.com] - with comments from Google's Adam Lasnik

[c41lum]

Thanks Tedster for the swift reply as always you are a great help.

I have actually just noticed that we are getting the page "Tittle" from the Affiliate as well. I think this will be a bigger problem.

Which would you say is most important to fix first.

[tedster]

I agree that using any text content that is supplied to you through your affiliate account is a bigger issue - whether titles, meta descriptions, body content, whatever. Still, I'd fix both areas as soon as you can.