Redirect script to affiliate site?

[sundaridevi]

If I have a page with several affiliate links to an affiliate site (different pages on that site), Google may devalue it (just a little since Oct 13 it seems) because although it has significant and highly rated original content, it also point to an affiliate site.

So I was thinking about removing those links to see if I move back up the 5 or so positions I recently moved down. Then I thought. What if I just use a php redirect, google will see a php link to my own site. If it follows the link, it will end up offsite, but will it know the difference between whether it is an add or an affiliate link?

I could also just say, if IP is google bot, stay on this page.

Has anybody tried a redirect to an affiliate site?

[tedster]

The idea of sending affiliate links through a redirect script has been recommended by Matt Cutts. He went a bit further - saying that the redirecting URL itself should be deisallowed via robots.txt. I've heard from many webmasters who use this scheme over the years.

I could also just say, if IP is google bot, stay on this page.

That would be a form of cloaking and very likely to get you into more trouble. Googlebot should be served the same content that any other user agent gets.

That said, there's no doubt that Google has become quite strict with affiliate sites. Their demand is that the pages add very strong value. I think it was Google's John Mueller who said that the pages must offer value on their own, and not just be an excuse to list affiliate links.

[martinacastro]

I also read in Google Forums where JohnMu wrote about a post with this title: "an I use JavaScript to hide affiliate links from Google":

1. You're hiding links from Googlebot. Personally, I wouldn't recommend doing that as it makes it harder to properly understand the relevance of your website. I also doubt that you'd see any kind of visible change with regards to PageRank. Ultimately, that's your choice, just as it would be our choice to review those practices as potential attempts to hide content & links. What's the advantage for the user?

I think that the most important thing is to use nofollow tag to this type of links.

[sundaridevi]

The idea of sending affiliate links through a redirect script has been recommended by Matt Cutts. He went a bit further - saying that the redirecting URL itself should be deisallowed via robots.txt. I've heard from many webmasters who use this scheme over the years.

So if I have a redirect script "offsite.php" I should block spidering offsite.php in robots.txt?

re: nofollow. My page in question has the affiliate links nofollowed, but I think Google's problem with affiliate pages is not that they are voting, it is that they are piggybacking on somebody else. So google would rather reference amazon, than the guy who is just selling amazon's product from a different page.

This page was always number 1 for a very competitive search, but it recently went down to an average of about number 3 and bounces between number 1 and 8 fairly often. It is preceded by yahoo.com and followed by nytimes.com. Every week when nytimes updates there page, it moves ahead for one day, then falls below again. I think i will start experimenting by completely removing all those links and see what happens.

[mhansen]

I'm going to slightly disagree with you... if you have great and highly relevant content and sprinkle in some affiliate links, Google won't really care. At least not as far as we have seen.

If you have limited content, and several links to your affiliate products, then it probably looks like the page exists simply to bridge people to the vendor, so it may only get harder to rank well, regardless off what you do.

We run several successful affiliate sites that are content heavy... and light on affiliate-links. A typical page about a product may have 1000+ words, with 25-30 links (or more) on it... but only 1-2 are affiliate links to somewhere like Amazon or a different vendor.

We link to:

- The product manufacturers website
- Related content on our own website
- Other people or websites who may have reviewed the same products
- Where to buy the products (affiliate link)
- Highly relevant product information pages
- Related buying guides both on and offsite
- Videos off the product in use (sometimes we embed them into the content directly)

Basically... we incorporate the affiliate link seamlessly within the content, to complement the content, not be an actual part of building the content.

We do everything we can to make the page about the product, educating the consumer about the product, helping with other places to learn about the products etc etc... and oh yeah, if you want to BUY the product, here is our affiliate link.

Just add to the original question as well... We DO redirect ALL affiliate links through a robots-excluded directory (so we can track clicks - conversions), and we no-follow every affiliate link.

MH

[sundaridevi]

I'm going to slightly disagree with you... if you have great and highly relevant content and sprinkle in some affiliate links, Google won't really care. At least not as far as we have seen.

But if I understand correctly, you have effectively hidden your links from Google.

[londrum]

thats what worries me too. its a cloaked link.

lets not kid ourselves... if we redirect a link through our own site first, then google still knows where it ends up. its not like you are fooling them.

the fact that you have disallowed it in robots.txt doesnt mean anything. they can still reach the URL in other ways. what if a user follows the link using chrome? or with the toolbar installed? they will straight away know where that link goes.

so if google knows what you are doing, then what's the point in hiding it? you may as well just be clean and upfront about it, to be safe.

[mhansen]

But if I understand correctly, you have effectively hidden your links from Google.

No, we just tell Googlebot not to index them. Why should the redirect pages be indexed? Its no different than our contact form "thank you" page, or any other pages we have no-indexed on our site.

thats what worries me too. its a cloaked link.

How? A cloaked link would be is we showed (or sent) Googlebot to:

domain.tld/go/thislink

But we showed (or sent) live visitors to:

domain.tld/go/adifferentlink

In our case, we show EVERYONE the same links, and everyone lands in the same places. We just instruct Googlebot NOT to follow them and NOT to index them.

if Google knows what you are doing, then what's the point in hiding it? you may as well just be clean and upfront about it, to be safe.

I 100% agree with this statement! Be upfront and BRAG about the fact you are an affiliate, and you may be compensated for your super-high-quality information and review that helped the user decide that they MUST buy that product after reading your content! We are 100% upfront and fully disclose that we are an affiliate and who we are affiliated with.

[londrum]

i know that you said in another thread that you track the outbound clicks through the redirect, so i know you've got other legit reasons for doing it. but i think the OP is talking about something a bit different, because he wants to redirect the link in order to disguise it. and for no other reason than that.

i dont see the point in doing that, because google is bound to know where it's going.

[mhansen]

because google is bound to know where it's going.

Absolutely, Agree 100%.

I think that no matter how hard we try (and I have in the past) to fool Google from knowing it's an affiliate site, they do know. Google tracks the "user" to the n'th degree, especially if it was a Google referred user, who they rightfully consider theirs when it comes from a search query.

I recall reading from John Mu or Matt Cutts once before in the Google Webmaster Forums (cannot find reference) that the more a link or redirect was obfuscated, and the farther "from the norm" that the page or link was, the more cautious they (Google) are about how they treat the page in regard to their users.

MH

[sundaridevi]

Even if Google has a way to know where the link is going, I'm not sure that data is shared to the algorithm. I think we have to remember that google penalizing sites for accepting one kind of advertising, but not Adwords is activity that can be penalized under anti-trust laws. It's a place where they probably don't want to go.

In any event, if the redirect said, count.php?id=30 how is google to know if the objective is counting clicks or masking a redirect. They don't and penalizing activity that could have a business strategy objective, is questionable in my mind.

Having said that, my question was just whether or not this will work and whether or not anybody has tried it. So I guess I consider it answered. Thank you!