Affiliate links penalties

Is that true?

[mmr82]

I've heard some rumors that there are new Google penalties that are likely to affect affiliate links in a BIG way.

Is the true? If yes how to dodge that?

Mohamed

[Canary]

Not heard anything about this, anyone?

If Google was owned by Micro$oft I could see the logic - kill off affiliate sites in the hope to build up Adwords revenue?

Mind - a lot of affiliate links are Javascript links arent they? - so should be ok - shouldn't they?

But Google aren't owned by M$ and would they run the risk of upsetting so many merchants/advertisers?

[mfishy]

Maybe they will penalize Yahoo and AOL for being Google affiliates/partners and not having enough unique content then. :)

[rcjordan]

rumor (some, anyway)
[webmasterworld.com...]

<added>
reading gets more interesting around post 43
[webmasterworld.com...]

[europeforvisitors]

Ever since I've been a member of Webmaster World, I've read rumors about Google penalizing or otherwise punishing sites with affiliate links. I've never seen any evidence to support that claim, and my own site (which has affiliate links on every page) does very well in Google.

Furthermore, it wouldn't make sense for Google to penalize or devalue sites with affiliate links because doing so would punish some of the Web's leading content sites (many of which use affiliate links just as mom-and-pop sites do).

Since Google's stated mission is to organize the Web's "information" (their word, not mine), it would make sense for Google to give more weight to pages with original content than to pages that consist solely of affiliate links. And as Google's algorithms become more sophisticated, it's possible that Google might give a slight downward bump to pages that use (or appear to use) boilerplate content such as catalog descriptions and travel vendors' copy-and-paste destination guides. It's even possible that Google might use certain types of affiliate links to flag pages for closer (but still automated) examination. But taking such steps wouldn't be the same as penalizing sites for using affiliate links.

[mfishy]

Well said Europe

[cindysunc]

LOL, EuropeForVisitors, so you're basically saying affiliate sites are ok only if they are used the way you use them. Maybe i should change my name to my site name and say nothing but good things about Google?

[europeforvisitors]

LOL, EuropeForVisitors, so you're basically saying affiliate sites are ok only if they are used the way you use them.

No, I'm not saying that at all. I'm saying that Google doesn't penalize affiliate links.

[Kennyh]

For Google to penalise sites just because they contain affiliate links would be self-defeating, and frankly insane. Some of the best content on the web is provided by sites who make income from affiliate links. What next? Penalise sites with pop-ups or banner ads. Personally I'd rather see an affiliate link in context as part of a good content page than a pop-up or banner any day.

I agree with europe, there are too many affiliate sites with 'boilerplate' content. This dilutes the value of the rankings by including duplicate content and content which has dubious value to searchers. Maybe one day a better algorithm will separate those affiliates with useful content and those which have merely copied and pasted vendor pages.

[buckworks]

I'll second what EuropeForVisitors says. I have seen no evidence that affiliate links trigger any sort of Google penalty (or any other SE either).

Some sites would experience an indirect negative effect from the fact that DMOZ intermittently rejects sites with affiliate links, but that's not the same as a penalty. A DMOZ gap can be overcome with intelligent link development in other directions.

[SebastianX]

Depends. Sponsors who spam and/or tolerate large spammers may become a bad neighborhood. A page with many or only links to bad neighborhoods may get downranked a little. Penalizing affiliate links in general sounds like the onMouseover rumor last week.