Sphinn - Google Recommends Screwing Affiliates for Better SERP Positioning

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Google Recommends Screwing Affiliates for Better SERP Positioning

Went Hot: September 12, 2007 - 3:25 pm
Posted By: Sebastian 661 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://sebastians-pamphlets.com)
Category: Google SEO

I’ve worked hard to overtake the SERP positions of a couple sites allowing me to link to them with an affiliate ID, and now the allmighty Google tells the sponsors they must screw me with internal 301 redirects to rescue their rankings. Bugger.

Since I read the shocking news on Google’s official Webmaster blog this morning I worked on a counter strategy, with success. Affiliate programs will not screw me, not even with Google’s help. They’ll be hoist by their own petard. I’ll strike back with nofollow and I’ll take no prisoners.

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from JohnWeb 661 days ago #

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I've held off for years doing just this, but I guess since Google says we should, we should. Though I still think you are getting credit for the link, as they seem to consolidate urls pretty well without our intervention.

from Sebastian 661 days ago #

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Well, probably you get the credit faster by not bothering the canonicalization procedure. If you can simplify things and it costs you practically nothing, then it's good practice to do it.

from toprank 661 days ago #

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Sebastian, this is verrrrry interesting stuff. With Google posting the info officially, I wonder how many merchants will do the redirects?

Like the new design BTW.

from chrisjlee 660 days ago #

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This post reminds me of the Google bowling article the other day.

from Sebastian 660 days ago #

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Thanks Lee, in comparision to the old thingy it's a quantum leap, I just didn't figure out yet where to put the blinking merchant banners. :)

Such messages from Google don't reach many Webmasters. Say 100k merchants read the Google Webmaster blog (and I bet that's rather 10k), that's nothing with regard to the number of affiliate programs out there. Then this bit is somewhat obfuscated in the post addressing canonicalization issues and dupes, so I think affiliate link consolidation will not become a trend soon.