Hello, We have an affiliate program that people use by adding a suffix to our normal URLs. For example, this is our standard home page URL: http://www.magictoolbox.com/ and this is the same URL with an affiliate tracking code: http://www.magictoolbox.com/?ac=1Q14Q2D If someone follows the affiliate URL, then the owner of that affiliate account will get 30% commission. Great. Except... It seems that Google is spidering these links and adding them to its index. For example: http://www.google.com/#q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.magictoolbox.com%2F%3Fac%3D1Q14Q2D&fp=22b4dcbb1403dc0f The two pages are the same, so we are concerned that Google might view this as duplicate content and therefore penalise it. What should we do to remove these affiliate URLs from the index? Thanks!
You are more likely to get a good answer if you posted the question in the general Google forum or the SEO forum, sinc it has nothing to do with Adsense. However, you should read what Google suggests: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2009/02/specify-your-canonical.html
Sorry, I wasn't concentrating, didn't realise this was for "Adsense" Guidelines / Compliance. Can I move this post to the Affiliate Program thread or should I make a duplicate post?
Click the little triangle with an ! at the bottom of your first post, then use the form to request the thread be moved.