Bypassing Google Penalty for Affiliate Links

[DomainFatigue]

The last year or two I have developed about a dozen of my domains into simple sites with 3-5 pages of content. Many of them appear on the first page of search results, and although they aren't of the type-in variety, get decent traffic. Anyway, on three of the sites I experimented and added an affiliate link. All three dropped off the first page and subsequently lost most of their traffic. Removing the affiliate links resulted in their eventual return to the first page... Is there any way to bypass what appears to be a Google penalty for adding affiliate links? I have a few more I'd like to try but don't want to go through this dance time and time again.

Thanks.

 

[droplister]

i would set up a 301 redirect via .htaccess so domain.com/offer would go redirect to the aff link.

 

[tonyfloyd]

i have affiliate banners/links on developed sites that appear on first page of google for many keyword searches....and i havent been penalized by google?....are u not allowed to have adsesne and affiliate links/banners on your site at the same time??

 

[DomainingCom]

Create links on the fly.
Set the a to # for example and when the link get the focus replace the a value by the affiliate link you want.

 

[tonyfloyd]

Create links on the fly.
Set the a to # for example and when the link get the focus replace the a value by the affiliate link you want.

you sound like Fenster from the "Usual Suspects".......in English Please!...

 

[DomainFatigue]

i would set up a 301 redirect via .htaccess so domain.com/offer would go redirect to the aff link.

Create links on the fly.
Set the a to # for example and when the link get the focus replace the a value by the affiliate link you want.

Thank you both. I'm going to have to ask my webguy (David) how to go about this. I appreciate your advice.

i have affiliate banners/links on developed sites that appear on first page of google for many keyword searches....and i havent been penalized by google?....are u not allowed to have adsesne and affiliate links/banners on your site at the same time??

I have discussed it with several others who haven't had this problem either. But as soon as I add an affiliate link to one of my sites it drops in a search. Maybe I will have to try it without Adsense...

 

[usedcargod]

I just experienced the exact same problem. Dropped from top 10 results to number 80. Pulled off affiliate links and three days later was back in top 10. I also have adsense ads on the page.

 

[dcristo]

I dont think there is a penalty as such, unless perhaps if you had too many affiliate links on the page, then you could be viewed as a thin affiliate site.

As droplister suggested, I would setup a 301 redirect via .htaccess It's a good thing to do because you mask the affiliate link so it doesn't appear as though it's an affiliate link to visitors.

are u not allowed to have adsesne and affiliate links/banners on your site at the same time??

This is allowed. What you can NOT do is display other contextual ads similar to adsense on the same page, such as YPN.

 

[tonyfloyd]

how should 301 re-direct code look?

is this easy to do thru .htaccess?

 

[dcristo]

how should 301 re-direct code look?

is this easy to do thru .htaccess?

Redirect 301 /product http://affiliate.merchant.hop.clickbank.net

where "product" is just a virtual folder, you can name it anything as it just redirects to the affiliate link