Hello, I run a travel website. I'm affiliate of Booking.com and have my own cname. At this time I have got a penalty from google, but I don't know the reason. I have a lot of links to my cname, I don't use the no-follow tag. Is it possible that google consider my links as paid links ? Can this be the reason for my penalty ? Should I use the no-follow tag ?
Yes, advise you to put no-follow tag on all your links, including this on the search form ("browse destinations"), simply as they are being counted as out-links. However, I am also affiliate of booking.com and all my links (sitewide) were DO follow around 2 years - never received any penalty for this, so I doubt G. have put penalty because of these links. Yes, booking's links do have aff. number regarding which numbers once there were some rumors that google do not like them at all, but booking is an authority site, from the same travel niche so I dont think there is a problem even if you leave your links as dofollow.