ID's Showing up in SERP's

[critter]

Hey All..

Quick question.

I manage a network of websites. This network also has a VERY large affiliate network. One of the things I did when I started working was fix our tracking system so we would get more benefit from our webmasters/affiliates linking back to your main properties, using our proper keywords as anchor...

With that said, we have some powerful webmasters and it seems many of our sites that rank on Google, Yahoo, MSN are showing up with ID-BLAH at the end of the url..

Any ideas why this happens?

i am thinking its caused by the abundance of backlinks. Since this webmaster (ID-BLAH) has many many sites which are seo'd well and rank pretty good too, I think Yahoo and Google are picking up so many of these backlinks with id-blah in it its including that in the listing of our site on the engines..

Any comments/ideas would be great!

Cheers

Critter

[bhartzer]

Those URLs (the ones that have ID-blah at the end of them) should redirect with a 301 to your site so you get the credit for the links. If they don't, you're going to run into issues like this--just wait until those URLs start to outrank your own site...

[critter]

Those URLs (the ones that have ID-blah at the end of them) should redirect with a 301 to your site so you get the credit for the links. If they don't, you're going to run into issues like this--just wait until those URLs start to outrank your own site...
We can't do that, as we have tracking for our webmasters.

Unless, if we create a 301 redirect will it still capture the tracking code in the event someone actually clicked the link off his webmaster site?

CRITTER

[bhartzer]

You can still track it, but generally it requires some custom programming on the back end.

The problem with not 301'ing them is that if you have certain affiliates that are really good at what they do their URLs will start outranking your site, which is definitely something that you don't want to happen. You'll end you wasting money on paying the affiliate when you shouldn't have to be paying them--simply because their site outranks you in the SERPs.

By 301'ing those URLs you're essentially not allowing the search engine to list them in their indexes. You'll take credit for the links, not the affiliate--so your site will always outrank your affiliates.

[critter]

You can still track it, but generally it requires some custom programming on the back end.

The problem with not 301'ing them is that if you have certain affiliates that are really good at what they do their URLs will start outranking your site, which is definitely something that you don't want to happen. You'll end you wasting money on paying the affiliate when you shouldn't have to be paying them--simply because their site outranks you in the SERPs.

By 301'ing those URLs you're essentially not allowing the search engine to list them in their indexes. You'll take credit for the links, not the affiliate--so your site will always outrank your affiliates.
Thanks for the info!

My only other question is why does this happen? Is this because of all the backlinks poitning to our site containing his ID?

Thanks

CRITTER

[NevDull]

The dupe filter in the SE is considering the page the affiliate link is pointing to to be the authoritative copy of the content that's showing up at several URLs.

[lots0]

Hi Critter, ;)

My first question is; Why/how is having the affiliate ID in the URL a problem for you guys?

When I have my affiliate hat on, one of my goals is to have my AFF ID appear in the displayed SE URL.

...the SE is considering the page the affiliate link is pointing to be the authoritative copy of the content...
I agree, the SE's are seeing the site with the affiliate links as an authority in your area.

I do believe that Critters area of e-commerce is highly competitive and dependant on affiliates and affiliate links to bring in customers, so I don't think they are all that worried about affiliates out ranking them, of course I could be wrong.

[NevDull]

I do believe that Critters area of e-commerce is highly competitive and dependant on affiliates and affiliate links to bring in customers, so I don't think they are all that worried about affiliates out ranking them, of course I could be wrong.

Well, if he gets the sale to his page from SE traffic without the affiliate code, he makes more money per sale. :)

[lots0]

Well, if he gets the sale to his page from SE traffic without the affiliate code, he makes more money per sale.
True :)

I think I should make myself clear more often.... :o

What I meant was that.... I believe the marketing model that critters network are using is mainly focused on affiliate marketing.