Hey all - quick question regarding affiliate websites...

I've been working on a large scale system to develope affiliate websites and have run across a few things that have made me take pause. The main concern I have is regarding the search engine's view of affiliate driven websites. A little while back I had a new site that was developed and initially spidered by MSN. We saw some great results right off the bat. About two weeks after our first appearance I noticed that our affiliate tracking links were incorrect. An easy mistake due to the amount of sites I am developing. So we fixed the links, and basically within a couple days our rankings dropped off of the face of the earth. We have not been reindexed since. The affiliate program in question is provided through Linkshare, so there shouldn't be any issues there. 100% unique content (I should know, because I wrote it :) ) A few high PR links, not too many though. Great title tags, Alt tags, and a few H-Tags. Site interlinking could use some improvement, but is decent. The site has 2 affiliate OBL's per page, so we aren't exactly slamming it down people's throats.

So based on the above information, any ideas on what could be causing our removal? The only thing I have been able to come up with is that MSN is toying with an affiliate link penalty. Has anyone else experienced something close to this?
Any input is greatly appreciated.

Attak

Hi Attak,


hmmmmmm... It sounds like you are doing things right and I have not heard of any affiliate link penalties at MSN. Now that you mention this I will try to keep my eyes open for any MSN news. Seems so much of the focus these days is on G, that I don't keep up with M as much as I used to. Let you know if I hear of anything.

Anyone else have any experiences like this to report?

Linda

I've been doing some reading and the general consensus is that affiliate links are a no-no for msn...this poses a problem for many of us. Any suggestions?

There aren't any MSN problems for affiliate sites that I know of, I've got several that rank and pull traffic (and conversions) just fine there.

I still have not seen this mentioned anywhere, but I also have not been keeping up with MSN as much because 90% of my SE traffic and the news I hear from affiliates is all Google. Can you tell me where you are hearing this? Forums I imagine?

Linda

It's circulating around the forums and nothing else seems to make any sense especially when performance with google is outstanding and msn is a flat line.

likewise, i've never had an issue with affiliate sites being devalued by MSN.

It's circulating around the forums and nothing else seems to make any sense especially when performance with google is outstanding and msn is a flat line.Just because things are circulating around forums doesn't make them so - and neither does the fact that people aren't identifying other causes.

Sites have been able to rank with Google based on links, so much so for several years that many people have neglected the basics of on-page SEO. But that isn't the case with MSN; there other factors that come into play for getting rankings with them.

What is the recommended SEO for MSN when affiliate links come in to play?

What is the recommended SEO for MSN when affiliate links come in to play?It's the same as it would be without affiliate links. ;)

All it really involves, actually, is a simple, basic minimum of on-page SEO, intuitive navigation, and semantically rich, diverse text on the pages and throughout the site.