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Question for Successful Amazon Affiliates

by CatherineMay
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
My question is - in this post-penguin internet world - how are you dealing with your on-site affiliate links to amazon products? Have you removed most of your links? Do you keep them below the fold? What about images in your content or the sidebar that link to Amazon products? Do you only have one product per page, and one link to that product?

My sites that were mostly amazon sites all tanked, but are still indexed. I don't think it was due to external links, because the only paid links I had were a small number from BMR, and I had even stopped that about a month before BMR shut down. All of my content is original, but maybe my pages are over-optimized and probably I don't have enough variation in anchor text.

The main thing I'm not clear on in terms of making changes are the affiliate links on the site to Amazon. Any information anyone can share would be greatly appreciated!
#affiliates #amazon #question #successful
  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    I only have one product per page and I no-follow all of my affiliate links. Each product page contains only a few affiliate links (usually no more than 3-4). I do no backlinking outside of a little social bookmarking and pinging of each new post.

    I've always done it this way and have very rarely had issues.
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    • Profile picture of the author CatherineMay
      Originally Posted by wolfmmiii View Post

      I only have one product per page and I no-follow all of my affiliate links. Each product page contains only a few affiliate links (usually no more than 3-4). I do no backlinking outside of a little social bookmarking and pinging of each new post.

      I've always done it this way and have very rarely had issues.
      What about linked images? Do you count those among the 3 -4 links you have per page?
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by CatherineMay View Post

        What about linked images? Do you count those among the 3 -4 links you have per page?
        Each post includes a single linked image. My blueprint below includes an example of how I lay my sites out (among other things).
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  • Profile picture of the author cooler1
    Originally Posted by CatherineMay View Post

    My question is - in this post-penguin internet world - how are you dealing with your on-site affiliate links to amazon products? Have you removed most of your links? Do you keep them below the fold? What about images in your content or the sidebar that link to Amazon products? Do you only have one product per page, and one link to that product?

    My sites that were mostly amazon sites all tanked, but are still indexed. I don't think it was due to external links, because the only paid links I had were a small number from BMR, and I had even stopped that about a month before BMR shut down. All of my content is original, but maybe my pages are over-optimized and probably I don't have enough variation in anchor text.

    The main thing I'm not clear on in terms of making changes are the affiliate links on the site to Amazon. Any information anyone can share would be greatly appreciated!
    I doubt the number of affilliate links is what caused your sites to be tanked. I have a site which was on page 1 for its main keyword after Penguin and that site uses the same amount of affiliate links as my sites which were negatively affected by Penguin.

    What percentage of your backlinks anchor text contains a money keyword? It sounds like if you have around 60%+ of your anchors containing the keyword your trying to rank for then that triggers a filter.

    When analyzing the backlink profiles for sites on page 1 which survived Penguin, it seems that they are either sites which don't have many backlinks i.e. new sites, or they have the bulk of the anchor text spread out over several keywords instead of only their main keyword.
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    • Profile picture of the author CatherineMay
      As for backlink anchor text, this is where everything gets unclear for me.

      For instance, If you're trying to sell a great coffee maker from Amazon, only 50% of your anchor text linking back to money site should say "coffee maker" or "brandname coffee maker" and the rest should be "click here" or "make great coffee" or phrases like that.

      Is this correct?
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by CatherineMay View Post

        As for backlink anchor text, this is where everything gets unclear for me.

        For instance, If you're trying to sell a great coffee maker from Amazon, only 50% of your anchor text linking back to money site should say "coffee maker" or "brandname coffee maker" and the rest should be "click here" or "make great coffee" or phrases like that.

        Is this correct?
        Yes, that is correct.
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  • Profile picture of the author Joni D
    Is it true for linking to Amazon from your site you need to show a price and a link that indicates its from amazon?
    I actually just did image and text links of products and no pricing or "amazon buttons" do I need to change all my links? I couldn't find in operating agreement and well tired of going thru so many pages and not finding that info, thanks for any help or show me example of how you display your links to amazon from your site.
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    • Profile picture of the author yukon
      Banned
      Originally Posted by Joni D View Post

      Is it true for linking to Amazon from your site you need to show a price and a link that indicates its from amazon?
      I actually just did image and text links of products and no pricing or "amazon buttons" do I need to change all my links? I couldn't find in operating agreement and well tired of going thru so many pages and not finding that info, thanks for any help or show me example of how you display your links to amazon from your site.
      I would never have an Amazon price on my site/page because you never know If/when that price will change.

      Actually having no price on your page gives you the opportunity to let the shopper click the Amazon link (cookie) to see the Amazon product price.
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    • Profile picture of the author Elle Holder
      Originally Posted by Joni D View Post

      Is it true for linking to Amazon from your site you need to show a price and a link that indicates its from amazon?
      I actually just did image and text links of products and no pricing or "amazon buttons" do I need to change all my links? I couldn't find in operating agreement and well tired of going thru so many pages and not finding that info, thanks for any help or show me example of how you display your links to amazon from your site.

      It's actually against Amazon's TOS to have pricing on your page unless that pricing is being fed to your site via their API. You don't have to use their Buy buttons either, but they do ask that it be fairly transparent - somehow - to your visitors that when they click your links they are being led to Amazon.
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