Sep 21, 2008
Part 2 in the Series, about how Search Engine Optimisation Practitioners need experience.
I started the series with discussion about how you can't trust an SEO practitioner who has had only 6 months experience. I have been in the industry for 6 years - since September 2002. Article one talked about my experiences with the duplicate content penalty. I am constantly learning.
SEO and Affiliate Schemes
I have been having revelations about websites promoting affiliate schemes. But my research into this area is definitely young. I personally promote the USA educational industry on a website (The-Top-Schools.com), and website templates (MarketItOnline.co.nz) on another.As hard as I have tried, I have not been able to get The-Top-Schools ranking on Google. And MarketItOnline has had the same troubles. MarketItOnline stopped ranking at the time of TemplateMonster's demise and resurrection on Google (several years ago). It was an interesting coincidence that spoke of a tweak in Google's algorithm to stop many of Template Monster's affiliates ranking.
I have not touched either website for several years, so there are certainly duplicate content issues with other websites copying content etc on them, but even if I fixed these issues, the websites would still not rank for their search phrases.
Then I read about how Google does not like seeing multiple websites promoting the same thing - Template Monster templates, Amazon, or ClickBank. If I was Google, how would I try and get rid of such copies? I would find a pattern, and get rid of any website from the Search Engine Result Positions (SERP's) that had that pattern. Yes, there are exceptions, and such exceptions can make it hard to determine such a rule.
The challenge for marketing such affiliate websites is to have both unique content, and NO trace of that affiliate link. How thoroughly hidden it has to be is uncertain. The links to Template Monster were Javascript. I consider that Google found them somehow. Redirect links that are robots.txt forbidden are a good start.
But I have currently not been successful at getting one of my websites ranked for templates or schools on Google.com - although I have been ranked top ten on Google.com for Cooking Schools/Culinary schools in the past.
So may this article serve as a warning to you when trying to get rankings for pages that have affiliate links. Be careful. SEO and Affiliate schemes, not an easy mix to get correct.
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Joel Mclaughlin - Jun 19, 2009
Great advice, people have to be careful with how they promote their websites and also they need to be careful with duplicate content.