GPWA Times Magazine - Issue 35 - June 2016

have no need for SEO? Perhaps they rely on more direct, conven- tional methods for marketing. That’s quite likely, but it doesn’t detract from the issue at hand —wanton affiliate activity can and does harm a site’s potential to rank, and will affect site owners who choose not to employ SEO as a marketing practice. Here’s an interesting scenario that highlights the problem. One of the most popular brands had a large backlink profile, ranging from no-follow direct affiliate links to mass sitewide do-follow links in footers. At first glance they come across as typically “spammy,” and if the site were an affiliate blog, you would ex- pect black hat to be at the heart of that link profile. But this was a respected brand among the top 10 most searched U.K. bingo operators. We had to dive deeper and investigate. This was definitely not the work of black hat SEO. It was clearly an uncontrolled inbound link profile from a vast array of aspir- ing affiliate bloggers, a mix of professional and amateur adver- tisers and excessive banner and link placements spanning all manner of websites. It’s important to understand affiliate linking practices and how they impact SEO in particular. In this business, affiliates link to operators in three different ways: 1. Partnering with a third party and using its URL structure (e.g., http://coolaffiliatepartner.com/abc123tracking#id3, which then navigates clicks to a third-party hosted landing page, http://coolaffiliatepartner.com/abc123tracking#id3?best- landingpageever). 2. Through a redirect, where the URL is again structured as part of the third party’s site (e.g., http://coolaffiliatepartner.com/ abc123tracking#id3, yet clicks are redirected to the brand’s domain, http://www.nicebingobrand.com/abc123landing- page). 3. Direct, whereby the affiliate link is structured with the brand’s domain, followed by the appropriate tracking param- eters (e.g., http://nicebingobrand.com/abc123tracking#id3, and clicks are redirected to a landing page, http://www.nice- bingobrand.com/join). Scenario 1 has no direct SEO impact on the main domain, as it does not link to or associate with the bingo site. Scenario 2 is in principle qualified as a backlink, and depending on how the redirect occurs, can have an impact (positive or negative) on SEO. Scenario 3 will certainly draw SEO attention, as the main domain is structured into the affiliate URL and thus becomes a solid backlink. One cannot assume that search engines acknowledge every in- bound link, and as we know, these signals can both help and hinder a site’s SEO. But when a link profile ascends into the tens of thousands, a site may run the risk of acquiring algorithmic adversity. It’s unlikely to trigger a manual penalty, but owners may find it hard to rank for certain queries, and this could be considered inadvertent over-optimization. In our case study, we discovered a potential case of over-opti- mization, and affiliate links were likely the root cause. We saw similar trends within the link profiles of other notably popular brands that had amassed equally vast affiliate link profiles. They all struggled for visibility within generic searches. Our chosen brand, however, had another interesting attribute contributing to this conundrum: A large portion of inbound affiliate links were pointing to their domain, yet were landing pages for “sis- ter sites” and were part of a centralized affiliate management solution. These “sister brands” had comparatively minuscule link profiles, yet their own sites (minus a link profile) had more visibility and in some cases ranked better for lucrative industry search queries. The popular brand surpassed the sister sites for almost all other (presumed) rank contributing factors, but struggled to rank for anything other than its own branded search terms. The extensive link profile was the only clear difference and led us to conclude that affiliate link activity is a reasonable consideration when ana- lyzing brand SEO. However, it’s important not to jump to the conclusion that all af- filiate links invite negativity. The underlying predicament is that uncontrolled linking will inevitably affect a site’s ranking ability, and brands should at least understand how and why people are linking to their site. As an affiliate, I’d suggest we collectively consider who is on the end of our links and how affiliate linking principles can and do affect search results. More information about this subject is available via WhichBingo’s an- nual report at http://www.whichbingo.co.uk/reports/. The most noteworthy bingo sites often have inadequate search presence and low SERP visibility. These popular sites struggle to rank for related transactional search queries other than their own brand names.” Martin McGarry , known as “martinseomcgarry” on the GPWA Forums, is a U.K. sportsbook enthusiast, a football fan and a terrible horse racing tipster. He is a former affiliate blogger and marketing consultant turned in-house SEO theorist for the U.K.’s largest bingo portal, WhichBingo.co.uk . 28 All about those links, ’bout those links, no-follow