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SEO Friendly Affiliate Systems

While I was browsing through today’s posts at SEW, I came across a post on the topic of affiliate networks and SEO.

The basic question presented in this thread is this:

Is it possible to structure an affiliate tracking system in such a way that the links used by affiliates end up helping the merchant site rank better in organic SERPS?

The answer is

YES.

But before I start explaining how it is done, I should probably warn you that SEO savvy affiliates (aka crack heads) won’t be real happy with you if you set your program up the way I’m about to show you. We actually prefer that the merchant’s site never shows up in organic results. And not only do we not want you to show up, we would prefer that you run an extremely sloppy system that increases the chance of our affiliate links actually getting indexed by search engines.

With that said, here is a quick rundown of the three most common methods of affiliate tracking:

1. Tracking URL with no redirection

This is the most simple, and also the most retarded. With this type of system, the merchant will provide the affiliate with a URL that looks something like:

http://www.merchantsite.com/?affid=1234

When someone clicks on that link, they are served a copy of the homepage and a cookie is usually set. The problem with this setup is the fact that bots will request these links as well. Because a copy of the homepage is actually served for each unique URL generated for each affiliate, search engine bots end up indexing several thousand copies of the same page. And that of course results in a bunch of duplicate content, which is never beneficial.

In a worse case scenario, (from a merchant’s perspective) an affiliate can sometimes generate enough link juice to one of these affiliate URL’s to get it to replace the real homepage in the SERPS. When that happens, the merchant usually loses his mind because he ends up paying commissions on people who are typically searching on their brand name.

2. Tracking URL combined with 302 redirection

This is probably the most common system you’ll see. Rather than simply tacking the affiliate id onto the URL and serving the page, the URL is run through a redirection script. It will usually look something like:

http://www.merchantsite.com/redirect.php?affid=1234

When a visitor clicks on this type of link, the affiliate cookie gets set, and then they are redirected to the homepage. From that point on, they are never again served unique URL’s containing affiliate tracking code. That’s a good thing because it helps to eliminate many potential duplicate content issues.

But it really doesn’t do anything in terms of helping the merchant’s organic SERPS. That’s because a 302 is considered a temporary redirect. And to a search engine, that means the page they are asking for will at some point be back at the URL they requested. And since it’s going to come back at some point, there is no reason to transfer the link juice from the affiliate’s page to the homepage.

3. Tracking URL combined with a 301 redirect

Using a 301 instead of a 302 has a huge impact on the entire system. That is because a 301 is a permanent redirect. It’s the equivalent of filing a change of address with the post office. With a 301, you are telling search engine bots that the affiliate URL they are requesting has been permanently moved to the merchant’s homepage. And that, in turn, causes the search engines to credit the inbound link to the merchant’s homepage. (Or whatever page the redirect was pointing to).

If you want to get the maximum mileage out of a 301 setup, you should also throw some mod_rewrite into the mix. Dynamic parameters can easily be used by search engines to help identify potential affiliate URL’s, sSo the last thing you want is your links containing things like ?affid=1234.

Here is a great example:

Bodog Sportsbook & Casino

If you mouse over that link, you will see that it contains no dynamic parameters. If you click on it (and do a header check) you will see that you are redirected to the site’s hompage via a 301. And if I had not used a condom with this link, the anchor text and any potential PR would eventually be transferred to the site.

What makes a system like this so cool is the fact that you can use it with any internal page, so you can give affiliates links that target specific promotions like:

$100,000 Guaranteed Online Poker Tournament

That can help generate a large volume of deep internal inbound links and we all know you can never have enough of those.

So what should you do?

That depends on who you are, and what your ultimate goal is. If you’re a merchant and your goal is to make sure your site always outranks your affiliates, a 301 system is definitely the best way to go. But just remember, that if you decide to make the switch, you may end up alienating some of your best affiliates.

If you’re an affiliate who is working with a merchant using an SEO friendly system, you can certainly experiment with cloaking your links, using your own redirection system, or simply using a condom to stop your site from helping the merchant site rank better.

Unfortunately, unless you can convince all the other affiliates in the network to do the same, you probably won’t have much success. In the long run, you will most likely experience a negative impact to your revenue stream from an SEO friendly affiliate system.

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