Affiliate SEO

Most people missed the irony in my earlier post…… you know, about copying text and sticking an affiliate link on it……

If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam

In BOTH leaked quality rater guidelines we’ve seen for Google quality raters – as leaked and then pulled by Search Engine Land (if you didn’t get a copy – maybe you should be subscribed :) ) – this statement is pretty standout – and should be a heads up to any webmaster out there who thinks they are going to make a fast buck from Google organic listings these days.

It should at least make you think about the types of pages you are going to spend your valuable time making.

If you are making a page today with the sole purpose of making money from it – and especially with free traffic from Google – you obviously didn’t get the memo. I talked about this sort of thing a long time ago in a Google sandbox article.

Big sites with marketing clout can sidestep this of course – so a lot of small sites trying to make some cash get hit. That might be unfair – but at least we know what field we are playing on – even if  we don’t quite know what the ‘rules’ are.

It is worth remembering that your site MAY VERY WELL have to pass a manual review at some time – so just, as i also mentioned last year,  getting to the top of Google isn’t enough.

Consider this from a manual reviewer:

…when they DO get to the top, they have to be reviewed with a human eye in order to make sure the site has quality. potpiegirl

It’s worth remembering:

• If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam
• If A Site Exists Only To Make Money, The Site Is Spam

This is how what you make will be judged – wether it is fair or not. I guess that makes a lot of us little guys spammers – wether we think we are, or not! If you are building a page that is already classed as spam by search engines, does that mean you may as well SPAM the search engines silly? I mean – you are already a spammer, anyways? Mixed messages – but TBH it is for this very reason I do not promote pure-affiliate sites for anybody else – so there is no point contacting me to do so.

IS IT ALL BAD NEWS?

Of course not – in some cases – it actually levels the playing field. I certainly don’t want to be a spammer.

If you come at a website thinking it is going to be a load of work and passion, thinking:

• DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF
• BE REMARKABLE
• BE ACCESSIBLE
• ADD UNIQUE CONTENT TO YOUR SITE
• GET CREDITED AS THE SOURCE OF UNIQUE CONTENT
• HELP USERS (!) IN A WAY THAT IS NOT DONE BY 100 OTHER SITES

…. then you might actually find you’ve built a pretty good site and even – a brand.

Google doesn’t care about us seo or websites – but it DOES care about HELPING USERS. So, if you are actually helping your visitors – and not by just getting them to another website – you are probably doing one thing right at least.

With this in mind – I am already building affiliate sites differently.

Experienced Affiliates SEO – This isn’t probably for you. You know this stuff. I’m just thinking out loud here….. although feel free to rain on any theories about observations expressed

I read some forums and just about every answer to somebody’s ranking woes is get better quality links. In the long term of course for most sites, it’s useful advice (if a bit cryptic). I looked at a site that was given as an example, and wondered if the site itself wasn’t the reason for crap rankings, and perhaps even the age of the operational site present.

I mentioned before I class myself as a corporate seo. Moving into affiliates last year and building a lot of sites gave me a chance to experience things I just hadn’t experienced before. I’ve worked in a lot of different verticals in very competitive niches. Just NOT to experience things I experienced this year in my web travels gave me a gut feeling that once Google identified your NEW site’s ‘INTENT’ by classifying your site (I’ll surmise – as either a ‘bricks and mortar’ business or a middleman site) your rankings where at risk regardless of any quality onsite or inbound signals your site may have.

Normally we build a small microsite for a client around a keyword rich url, build a good, user friendly site, ensure it has all the normal business ‘signals’, and submit it to directories and article sites for search engine discovery and get on with coming up with ways of getting real business signal links to the site (local gov links, sites that don’t normally link out to crap etc etc ).

The graphs below illustrate 3 MINIsites all targeting one main keyword phrase, all built virtually identical, all with quality inbound link signals, with just a few differences between them. 2 sites rank today, 1 site is ‘sandboxed’ for want of a better term.

Exhibit 1 – Small Business Mini Site With Good Rankings

• Class: Mini-Site (Ecommerce)
• Outbound Links:No
• Unique Content
• Rankings: Constant (+Improving)
• Organic Traffic: Constant (+Improving)
• Honeymoon Period / Sandbox: None
• Prospects: Looking Good – No10 For Main Keyword after 2 months and improving

Exhibit 2 Private Affiliate Deal With Good Rankings

• Class: Mini-Site (Private Affiliate – Non-Affiliate Links – ie straight url links)
• Rewritten Content found on just a few sites
• Outbound Links:Yes
• External Nofollow: Yes
• Cloaked: No
• Rankings: Constant (+Improving)
• Organic Traffic: Constant (+Improving/stable)
• Honeymoon Period / Sandbox: None
• Prospects: Looking Good – No2 For Main Keyword – traffic stable

Exhibit 3 With Affiliate Network Links & TERRIBLE RANKINGS

• Class: Mini-Site (Affiliate – Affiliate Urls – ie detectable parameters)
• Rewritten content (+content found on other sites – but all target pages had unique content and lots of it)
• Outbound Links:Yes
• External Nofollow: Yes

• Cloaked: No
• Rankings: ERATIC!
• Organic Traffic: ERATIC!
• Honeymoon Period / Sandbox: 3 Instances
• Prospects: FOR THE MOMENT FECKED – @4weeks top ten for main keyword & great rankings, then SHORTCIRCUIT – top ranking pages are severed from the index, lower, irrelevant pages rank in -50+ positions. Rankings tank, traffic drops to virtually ZERO from Google.

All sites are built on the same platform. All sites have decent links.

How The Sites Perform The Way They Do

Exhibit 1 + 2 perform well and like any other small microsite you build. A few months, some original content, a few decent links, some directory links and articles and the odd quality link here and there.

There’s not much difference between exhibit 2 and 3. I mean, these two sites are BUILD EXACTLY ALIKE on the same platform. Site 3 actually has the better link profile as I knew it needed it!

• The only real world difference I can see is they are in different markets, one (SITE2) lacking some real quality sites, and the other, seasonable spam city. This could be very important of course.
• The only technical difference are affiliate ‘looking’ links – that is, urls with affiliate IDs. Site3 has them and site2 does not
• All sites have pretty decent links (and I mean decent!)

Of course, it’s not news Google, it is often argued, hates new affiliate sites – or middlemen sites as I think about it. If you’re intent is to make a fast buck out of Google – and upset the status quo Google has decided should merit their rankings (calculated over a longer period than your new site has been in the mix) – then why should Google help you out? At least while your site is so young?

I knew this before I started, but I decided not to cloak or hide my affiliate links on a few sites to see what happened, because this whole year is for learning. (Site3 is one of them)

How Has Google Classified Your Site?

What if – if Google counts a lot of affiliate urls as a signal of your intent, it can class you as a particular type of site. If Google classes you as a particular type of site, it means your NEW SITE (I am talking about brand new domains) may be eligible for a kick in the nuts in terms of rankings fluctuation at least in the short term. What if that filter was perhaps a date activated filter that say shorcircuits new sites in an already crowded set of results?

I’m new to afiliate seo and I know I should be hiding my affiliate ID links. In fact, all my new affiliate sites I ‘cloak’ my links with a custom script these days. To be honest though, I think if Googlebot comes accross links to internal pages it is blocked from accessing, it’s might well class those as affiliate links as well by default – they won’t trust those links either.

Your site might well still be classified as an affiliate. Putting nofollow on affiliate links? I heard Google ‘drops’ nofollow links from the link graph – but that’s not to say they won’t investigate the link and what it points to before it does drop it.

But I will play along as the new sites we’re planning on making will CERTAINLY NOT BE ‘frustrating user experiences’ – we’ve put a lot of effort into building sites that actually perform some amazing functionality – ALL USER FOCUSED TOO.

You might not be in affiliate search engine optimisation, but thinking about “does Google classify my site a certain way and will this affect my rankings?” perhaps we really need to think about the signals of intent your site has for best chance of great rankings, or indeed signals it lacks, to ensure you are not classed as the type of site Google has in it’s ‘short term’ sights.

We know Google identifies information sites, like wikipedia as important, and it can easily identify forums, shopping sites, spam, blogs etc and tailor for specific search queries. We know Google has a history of mucking things up at holiday times etc too and perhaps it’s by this sort of classification.

It would be very wise to make sure you are in the right classification by sending the right signals to Google at all times, and trying NOT to exhibit any negative footprint it may be on the lookout for. For instance, if you have a NEW small business site, I’d hesitate to put any affiliate links on a page to make a bit of extra cash, for instance.

I have a few ideas what those signals might be but then again so does everyone else (for instance perhaps the AGE of the OPERATIONAL domain (that is, the site that has been operational on that domain) would help in this scenario – that would be why you can’t fast break into markets where it’s all affiliates with a new site – as this would encounter the dreaded sandbox) . If you do affiliate seo I’d love to hear your thoughts either here or in private

These questions and all the other questions that arise are why I love SEO and stuck with it for so long, I think. I always find my self thinking “of course”, after every post, “maybe it just looks that way”, but it does urge me on to build a better site, at the very least.

I am a corporate seo and link builder – I am far from what I would call an expert in affiliate websites. This post is about what I think I have observed making the transition from corporate seo (my livelihood) to affiliate seo (my beer money).

When I started playing about with affiliate websites last year after getting some inspiration at THINK VISIBILITY (which I am going to again this year) where I had the please to chat with big Chris from Majorca Holidays, it’s kind of apparent that some sites that should rank, don’t.

For Example

I built 6 NEW test sites with exact match web addresses RECENTLY.

5 of them do well in organic rankings – very well. One of them is nowhere in Google, after months, and after getting some real links to the site too. (EDIT – The same site is Number 1 in Yahoo for it’s main keyword after a few months).

The performing sites are affiliate sites, made in much the same way as the underperforming site – but notably, these sites are NOT in a crowded space.

The underperforming site is a pure affiliate site in a very crowded (seasonal) space, with uncloaked affiliate links to suppliers, and discount codes and vouchers slapped all over the place. In short, I made no effort to hide it was a 100% affiliate site.

I did think we’ve made a nice niche site though – informative and easy to navigate for the user – better, in my opinion, than the competition. There is a lot of competition in this space, mostly spammy, and from the analysis I did, I thought it would be able to break into pretty quickly. I had 200 pages of content hand written too, to make the descriptions completely unique.

It all looked so good……

Top Rankings – Then ZZap! Nothing!

Much like the mythic Google sandbox some folk go on about, the site burst into the rankings and shot right to the top of Google. Then the site virtually disappeared for months (it still is nowhere – I have purposely let it be to see what happens to it). It almost looks like there’s a rankings short circuit. It’s as if Google is ignoring page relevancy within the site, and the page that should rank, is completely ignored, and as a result, another page on the site ranks on (for example) page 15. The pages that should rank within the site, do not.

Corporate SEO

As a corporate seo, I NEVER experienced a sandbox effect, even launching new sites – obtaining credible links from trusted sites always had an impact within months if not weeks.

Affiliate SEO

As an affiliate seo, I think I see this sort of sandbox (for want of a better word) as a phenomenon in some industries.

Google believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users, especially if they are part of a program that distributes its content to several hundred affiliates. Because a search result could return multiple sites, all with the same content, they create a frustrating user experience.

Hmmmm… well, that is exactly the type I built lol – no matter how well I built it.

It certainly looks as though Google has reacted and:

• identified it as an affiliate site, in an already ‘spammy’ industry with products already syndicated to a LOT of websites
• penalised it, or ‘sandboxed’ it – ‘for later’

Why should Google do this? To stop seo like me just wandering into it’s index, probably. Didn’t Google recently say they don’t think a site should rank JUST because a good seo is at the helm?

More Corporate?

I’ve spent my corporate career trying to make my sites not look spammy. Perhaps affiliate sites need to look more corporate.

Maybe Google just doesn’t want another site like yours – and mine – in this space? Well, there ARE hundreds, if not thousands. IT IS a “frustrating user experience” if I take my marketer hat off and put my searcher hat on.

Wether or not this is the case, I’m certainly thinking more about making my affiliate sites different to all the competition…. easier said than done of course.

That is actually what Google wants you to do:

If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings. Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site. When selecting an affiliate program, choose a product category appropriate for your intended audience. The more targeted the affiliate program is to your site’s content, the more value it will add and the more likely you will be to rank better in Google’s search results and make money from the program. For example, a well-maintained site about hiking in the Alps could consider an affiliate partnership with a supplier who sells hiking books rather than office supplies. Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users. Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information increases the likelihood that your content will be crawled by Googlebot and clicked on by users.

Do You Have The Wrong Type Of Site?

I see a lot of folk in forums bemoaning how their rankings are terrible, they are ‘sandboxed’, or they have lost previous good rankings. If you look at Google’s advice, you can see, Google actually warns you about building sites they, well, just don’t need any more:

Pure affiliate sites consisting of content that appears in many other places on the web is unlikely to perform well in Google search results and can cause your site to be negatively perceived by search engines. Unique, relevant content provides value to users and distinguishes your site from other affiliates, making it more likely to rank well in Google search result pages.

Do you have the exact same type of site as the current competition? Do you have the same affiliate links as most of the competition? If the answer is yes, and you want to compete for free google traffic, perhaps you need to think about the actual site you are building, rather than just the marketing of said site.

Just Get More Quality Links? Really?

I see a lot of advice from seo in forums and they seem to all mention at some time the same seo advice:

get more quality links

You know that advice on getting quality links to your website is sound, but what if Google has identified your site type as one it does not need in it’s already crowded index? What if this advice is from corporate seo, and not affiliate seo?

If this is the case, then you might be swimming upstream as far as good google rankings are concerned, and quality links won’t always rescue the site (in time for what you need it for).

It’s not as if quality links are that easy to come by these days anyways lol

For Discussion

Do let me know what your thoughts are especially if you are an affiliate seo – this is ONE site, and usually I wouldn’t blog about ONE site underperforming, but I thought it worth DISCUSSING as if Google is identifying particular types of site this aggressively, perhaps it’s a pointer of what’s to come (or is happening) in other verticals.

I have seen the arguments in this space FOR A LONG TIME. ‘There is a sandbox’. ‘The sandbox is a myth’. ‘Google hates affiliate sites’. ‘No Google hates crappy affiliate sites’. What I am saying is perhaps, in some scenarios, they are connected.

PS Check out Google’s advice on Affiliate Websites here. I’ve never really discussed affiliate websites on the Hobo blog, so I thought this might be a decent place to start….. even if I am way off with my theories, it’s probably useful to highlight what Google recommends about affiliate websites.