Since the search engines won't be spidering the affiliate link it doesn't matter if its a 301 or not. When people say 301 is friendly its inbound links they are talking about.
Yes Thoth 301 redirect is SEO friendly and you don't need to worry about it redirecting to many pages. This is because spiders recognize 301 as a code that the page has permanently moved to the specified page(s). I have seen many people using a permanent redirect but not utilizing the "Status: 301 Moved Permanently" part. That's a shame cause this phrase will not be shown in your users' browser but will tell the spiders why they are being redirected . If however, you are still worried about this you can block the spiders from this page. This will not affect your rankings but still benefit your users through a better surfing experience as they can come back to your site though the back button whenever they want (It will not keep bouncing them back as the META refresh does ) I'm afraid it really does matter mad4. Especially when you are not blocking the redirect. Using a meta refresh or a JavaScript redirect could result in you being penalized. That's why I say a 301 redirect is friendly for both inbound and outbound links. However, it is more friendly to the inbound links as it gives credit to this page and can really help boost their PR.
Thanks for the clarification mad4 Yes, a temporary redirect would be fine too. For the user, that is... However, with affiliate links it could still get you in trouble with spiders. The only way to describe a redirect to an affiliate link is a permant one. There is nothing wrong with a 302 (or temporary redirect) technically but spiders are now known to pernalize the use of the wrong redirect.
BlogLover, your post #4 states in the title "How To Protect Your Affiliate Links From Both The Search Engines And Thieves!" What do you mean by thieves? Are you refering to someone seeing the link as an affiliate link and then visiting the site by typing in the domain instead of clicking on the link?
Yep! It's partly want I meant There are also those people, who when they see your affiliate for something they want to buy, bypasses you and go on to sign themselves up as affiliates In this way, they earn the commission and in effect manage to get themselves a discount. I guess I was pretty harsh wasn’t I? But look at it from this angle. You have worked real hard in order to bring this great product to their attention. You have probably incurred some expenses on the way (for example web hosting fees, pay per click ads etc). Then someone comes and just bypasses your efforts. Isn’t that robbery? After all, they might not have benefited if it weren’t for your efforts!
Hi Bloglover-- I love your simple and elegant link cloaking solution. Thanks for posting. Maybe you (or anyone else, for that matter) can answer my one remaining question. There are many great reasons for hiding affiliate links, and I am wondering if this technique will work for one more reason: regaining quality score with Adwords? Google's stated intention for the November Google Slap II (which affected the Content Network traffic) was to provide the user with a better experience--to find what they are looking for faster. The interesting thing is that this is exactly the same reason I built my website. I wanted to help people avoid the scam work-at-home systems out there. (I could go through all I did to weed out the scams, and I would be happy to, but you're probably not interested in that). What I need to do is regain my PPC traffic from the Content Network with Google. My site is content rich, and has LOTS of high PR outbound links to industry and gov't watchdog sites. I have only 4 affiliate links on each page, but these are uncloaked at this time. Do you think that using your "recommends" technique will "hide" the affiliate links from Google as well--raising my quality score and giving me back my very profitable Content Network traffic? If not, any ideas on how best to do this? I don't want to do anything black hat, but at the same time, I need to help Google understand that I also want to give the users a good experience as well! Thanks, Scott
4 Affiliate links doesn't sound too bad to me. While I don't deal with adsense to much I can't see that many affecting your quality score. Most major sites have a certain number of ads on their pages (even if it is to advertise their own products). I did an experiment a while ago taking 2 similar sites (same website cms but different content) and I enabled url rewriting for one and not the other. After the next PR update the site with URL rewrite on had a lot better PR rating than the site with not (but not necessary a lot more traffic). I had also modified the number of affiliate links on certain pages on both sites. This did not seem to affect things at all. I went with maybe about 10 affiliate links down to 1. The reason I had so many affiliate links is that I find using text links is a lot better than using banners. So in the end I figured it was not worth the effort to use redirects. I also decided not to do it because: 1) Most affiliates seem not to allow it in their TOS. Of course most don't check for it and I haven't heard someone loosing their account over it. 2) Redirecting has been happening for a while now. I am sure Google is aware of it and has measures in place to counteract it.
Hi Scott Thanks for the compliment Yes the "recommends" technique I posted above will help you... Notice this step I posted? This will block all search engines from trying to index your "recommends" folder and all its contents. Therefore, you can rest assured that even if engines were to ban all sites using redirects yours would still be safe. This is what particularly makes this method attractive Once you add this line, you will not have to worry about your affiliate links as far as SEs are concerned.
Good information in this thread. I am using a frame, but I've just discovered that it's not allowed by clickbank, and I think I am losing affiliates sales too. I will switch to php redirect now. Question: what is the difference between 301 redirect and 302 redirect?
It’s a good thing you have realized your problem Franck. Some people would simply abandon their efforts and cry foul I don’t think you realize this but frames are not exactly search engine friendly either, so that’s another big plus for you OK enough of that. Off to 301 and 302! These are status codes that tell spiders about the page they are crawling. A 301 or “Page Permanently Moved†status tells them that the page has permanently moved. A 301 redirect will tell them this and redirect them to the new page (your affiliate link if you like ). A 302 or “Page Temporarily Moved†status tells them that the page has temporarily moved and the spiders will then expect it to be restored at some point in the near future. I don’t use ClickBank so don’t know about its TOS, but as JesterMagic has already pointed out, you should check its TOS first to see if it’s okay to use redirects. Some affiliate networks really don’t like redirects . However, I have seen a lot of redirects to ClickBank so I guess it’s fine with them. If they don’t accept redirects then you can hide your affiliate links from displaying in the status bar using JavaScript onmouseover and onmousedown.
I may sound pretty stupid with this, but I don't understand step 1 and I don't know where the robot.txt file is. "Use affiliate link protectors to protect your affiliate links" I find this affiliate subject a bit confusing. So first I need to affiliate myself with one, or several of affiliate programs, like Citybank or others, and then I need to build a website based on the category I choose from them? And I only get payed if people click on the link or if they actually make a purchase there? My head's spinning...
Thanks fortgo I just love sharing information Don't worry about that Dan. Since I posted that thread I have been going around the forum and have noticed that a lot of people don't know how to code these redirects. I am sorry it's something I overlooked Now that you have mentioned it. I will make it even easier. I will make you a simple software that can create these redirects for you. I will also create another one that creates a robots.txt. So watch out for this thread within the coming few days Well that's a yes and a no. Whether you need a website or not depends on the affiliate program. Big affiliate networks usually require that you have your own top level domain and a website before you can be approved. Not having a website however is not a choice you have to consider if you really want to have some decent commissions. Yes you will only be paid if your visitors click on your link, or enter their details for free or actually make a purchase. And again it depends on the affiliate program.
I would cloak my links and then block the path to them. Example: yoursite.com/redirect/linkname.html then block the redirect folder in the robots.txt.
Just some quick questions I'm researching. what are the steps do the display ad url versus destination url method? e.g. do you wait until the campaign is live, and getting impressions, before changing the keyword destination url? how long do you get (on average) before google shuts you down? are they very punitive consequences from google?