After some research into why our website is ranking on page 20 of Google for our own name I now believe Google has classified us as a 'thin affiliate'. Our website is not too dissimilar to hukd.com or vouchercodes.co.uk - both of which enjoy huge volumes of traffic. I do not believe Google would have exceptions to their guidelines so how do websites such as these avoid Google penalties? Any help is greatly appreciated.
Google will tell you if you received a thin site penalty, is your site registered in Webmaster Tools? If so check your messages. What kind of backlink profile do you have?
Try checking the webmaster page in google they may have sent you message in case you have recieved thin afilate penalty.
Hey AKpaddy, I think I am in the same shoes as you. I have a few Affiliate Recommendation Sites that were ranking in the first two pages of Google and after the HummingBird update - it dropped to page 6 and beyond... and no warnings were provided in the Google Webmaster Tools too. But I did notice that those rather similar affiliates sites that are ranking higher than my sites tend to have more Social Signals (e.g. more likes, +1's & tweets) so I am wondering if these are the important factors that contribute to the rankings.
Have you tried examining these similar sites and seeing what they have or are doing that you are not? Might be a good idea. And if I am reading this right you have a total of 6 backlinks only and nearly all from Reddit? This will likely explain why you are not ranking highly. Google will often rank sites high up when they are new then drop them to a more appropriate place once it's figured out where they really belong. Is your site a 'thin affiliate' site or not? Are you offering any REAL value to the end user they can't find on the end retailers site? Simply giving them the same info they can find at the final destination means your site is of no use to anyone other than you. Google hates sites like this. It does NOT hate affiliate sites however no matter what people will tell you. Some examples of major affiliate sites that Google has no problem with and / or offer a lot of value include... Comparison sites like... GoCompare MoneySavingExpert ComparetheMarket Quirky & Unusual Sites like... Thisiswhyimbroke.com dudeiwantit.com mummyiwantit.com theawesomer.com thegreenhead.com Niche Sites like... aPennyShaved.com bestsurvivalknifeguide.com cheapshark.com shoeporn.com Review & comparison sites like... thewirecutter.com consumersearch.com consumerreports.com thesweethome.com vacuumjudge.com (ranks #1 for a 220,000 p/m keyword) shoesniper.com Blogs... Matthewwoodward.co.uk Smartpassiveincome.com All of these sites monetize via affiliate marketing buy they offer TONS of value to the end user and can never be considered thin. A lot of them rank very well in Google too. Is your site offering REAL value to the end user? If not there's no reaspon for them to visit your site OR Google to rank you. Hope this was useful!
I'm sorry I didn't see you answer but is your website registered with Webmaster Tools? Are you sure they gave you a thin penalty? Regardless you should proactively attempt to add more content to your site and make it as unique as possible. That will help prevent any penalties and give you a higher opportunity to rank for additional keywords.
Thanks for the responses, really appreciated. Our website is for people looking for discount codes, price glitches and sales (a money saving website). The issue we have is the discount codes are constantly changing and we may have ten or even twenty new discount codes to post each day. It's almost impossible to create a 300-500 word article which is optimised for a particular keyword, then do the same for another code a day later for the same retailer. We have now created pages for each retailer which are well-written and keyword optimised. The page displays posts which have been tagged to that retailer. The individual posts however will only contain a title, a small image, a discount code and a link to the retailer. My fears is the post may be interpreted by Google as 'thin'. I would be interested to hear if you guys would consider this 'valuable content' and if the website structure detailed above is correct.
Yes we're registered with Google Webmaster Tools but we don't have any messages/warnings so I now assume it's simply a lack of content and backlinks.
Hi Stuart, Thanks for your detailed reply and the examples listed (I got lost for hours in a world of SEO advice and cool gadgets!). I feel I've learnt a lot from the structure of those websites too and now have lots of new ideas. Thanks for taking the time to reply.
Hello Can someone tell me where I can read more about the "Thin Penalty" , does anyone have a link to more about this. Thanks in advance,
You are absolutely right, it is because of a lack of structured content and backlinks. Your new strategy is spot-on, you should be having retailer pages created and if anything sub-pages based on different types of holidays. For example, maybe a target black friday page or something like that. Just take a look at what retailmenot does and figure out how and if you can do it better. Keep in mind that Google owns Retailmenot so you are in an uphill battle.
Bullshit. The "thin affiliate penalty" is part of the Panda algorithm. You DO NOT get WMT notifications of that! Its not even a penalty!; its an algorithmic lowering of ranking due to the content issues!
Actually they will tell you if you are manually penalized for thin content as well. Sure not all 100% of thin penalties receive notices but some actually do. So don't make absolute statements.
The automated Thin Affiliate penalty is easy to spot,your site will drop -50 spots from where it was in serps. ie: Page one serp result thats been solid is now page 5 result. How to come back from it ?. Cloak your affiliate links. I ran a split test on two similar sites recently one had cloaked affiliate links the other standard affilaite links. They both ranked on page 1 but within 15 days the uncloaked site dropped to page 5 in serps for around a month and has dropped off the radar since. The cloaked version is on page one in the first 3 results some 4 months later. Both of these pages have less than 200 words of cut and spun text on them so I'm not so sure the "Quality" is measured by the amount of content or it's uniqueness. Of course there is much more to ranking than cloaking the links,you need to be able to understand backlinking strategies. Compare the top ten site results against your site searching google for "ahrefs" Take note of the amount of links,link velocity,keyword anchor percentage etc. It appears one of the main triggers is the uncloaked affiliate links. Yoast has been talking about this for several years. If you use Wordpress try this,it works. Google "Yoast cloak affiliate links" Sorry this forum is not allowing me to post links. Another automated reduction in ranking comes from using adsense "above the fold",If you have a header ad remove it for a month and watch your site rise a few spots in the search results. If you are running 1 or 2 large block ads near the top of the page along with a header banner ad you will get hammered by this penalty for sure. Despite what Google tells you in the instructions of best placement they penalise you for doing so. Search Google for "Adsense above the fold penalty" Sorry I tried to add links to this post but the forum says they are not responding and will not allow the post to be posted without removing links.