Would I Be Penalised For Having Text Link Referal Banners On My Site?

Discussion in 'Google' started by bad_bob00, Dec 29, 2007.

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  1. #1
    Hi there,

    I don't actually participate in Text Link Ads (I don't buy or sell text links) but I do use their affiliate program. Although it doesn't actually earn me much money, I'm just wondering if Google dislike people promoting the Text Link Ads website - so does anyone know if Google are penalising the sites that promote Text Link Ads?


    Thanks for any help.
     
    bad_bob00, Dec 29, 2007 IP
  2. Dwaighty

    Dwaighty Peon

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    #2
    I also use TLA affiliate banners on one of my websites. I was hoping to receive a PR 3 or 4 this update but I received only PR1 on that website. I can't say for sure why, and I don't know if it has to do with my TLA affiliate links or with something I did wrong, but just to play safe I masked my affiliate links from then on. No impact on the SERPs however.
     
    Dwaighty, Dec 29, 2007 IP
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  3. bad_bob00

    bad_bob00 Active Member

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    #3
    When you say you masked your affiliate links, does this mean you added a ref="nofollow" command to your links?

    Thanks for the helpful reply
     
    bad_bob00, Dec 29, 2007 IP
  4. Vic_mackey

    Vic_mackey Banned

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    #4
    Make a file in notepad and call it for example TLA.php

    Now put this in it:

    <?php
    header( 'Location: http://www.Affiliate-url-here.com' ) ;
    ?>

    Save the file and upload in your root directory.

    Now instead of linking your banner directly to TLA, link it to http://www.yourdomain.com/TLA.php

    Anyone clicking it will be redirected to TLA. The good thing is it disguises the fact its an affiliate. You should also put a nofollow on it too.
     
    Vic_mackey, Dec 29, 2007 IP
    bad_bob00 and arpitagarwal82 like this.
  5. Dwaighty

    Dwaighty Peon

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    #5
    As Vic_mackey said it would be good to have a special folder "redirects" that you disallow in your robots.txt file, and you put in this folder the php files that redirect to your affiliates as suggested above.

    I chose the lazier solution, meaning I used tinyurl.com to mask the url and then added a rel="nofollow" to the link. But I recommend you do like Vic_mackey said, it is far better to have internal links than links to third party sites like tinyurl.com, urlcut.com, etc.
     
    Dwaighty, Dec 29, 2007 IP
  6. bad_bob00

    bad_bob00 Active Member

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    #6
    If I hide the code by doing the redirects and changing the .htaccess file, will Google still be annoyed if they randomly noticed the links on my website?

    I would quite like to know if Google dislike people promoting the Text Link Ads program, and whether they would punish the sites that try and promote the TLA program by using the TLA affiliate program.


    Thanks for any more help.
     
    bad_bob00, Dec 31, 2007 IP