Today I Became an Affiliate!

[cz]

I have a website which has been online for almost 8yrs. It holds top spots for almost all of the "big number" search terms. I'm no giant but I operate in a very tightly focused niche. I get about 400 uniques a day which is large for strictly "organic only" traffic in this niche.

The products are expensive $150 to $2K per item and all in between.

I'm tired of the site and the time it consumes. Stock prices are way to expensive to risk buying, since it's a fast paced niche with new upgrades and stuff becoming obsolete - hate to get stuck with $10k of junk that I can't sell in a month from now!

I affiliated with the largest company that also sells my product line along with 10's of thousands of related items. When I go out of stock and the manufacturer who dropships for me now, runs out, or stops stocking a product - this company always has it.

Today I put up about 10 links "Purchase the XYZ" (anchor text) where the order button was and it's an affiliate link with a "no-follow" attribute in the link. Anything the customer buys after entering the site and being cookied, I will get a comission on.

1. Will this harm my organic search results that I currently enjoy?

2. If I add more of these will it harm my organic results? I plan to have about 25 - 30 outbound affiliate links with "no-follow" for a 280 page website.

3. Can I independantly track my link? - I had an email (lost it) offering a tracking software for outbound affiliate links - sound possible, or do I take their word for it?

Thanks for reading this long post but I'm new to this and don't want to screw things up. I'm hoping for some advice from you experienced guys in affiliation and SEO too.

Thanks again!

[weegillis]

Let's start with the least experienced, shall we?

As we understand it, nofollow simply chokes the juice, not the actual following of the link. If there is a commission at the other end, that's your affair.

[Tubby]

"or do I take their word for it?" . . NO!

I do not have a good mental image of what you are doing. If you are currently making sales on line. . can't you refer the completed sale? previously you were making the sale on your site?

(I am a little distrusting of cookies & affiliate programs.)

[cz]

Tubby

I was making the sale on my site and faxing orders to the wholesaler and fronting the cash (a lot) for one product line. Also answering tons of questions, handling returns etc. and putting in a lot of time.

The place I affiliated with is the Mecca for everything in a huge niche - one of the 1,000's of product lines they carry is the one my whole website is focused on.

I have a hard time keeping up with what's left in the warehouse (won't allow me an access page) and have to call all the time. Also my wholesaler runs "in and out" of items really quick, making it more of a pain.

I'm putting "no-followed" links from "out of stock" products to the large Affiliate site that will drop my customers right on their "buy page" for a product I don't have or is no longer available to me. They told me they cookied the customers following these links and would pay commissions on "any product they buy - storewide."

I'm primarily worried that these outbound affiliate links wll be frowned on by Google, and others engines that have always given me top spots for my search terms?

[crankydave]

Well, rather than an affiliate link. I'd be more inclined to contact them simply about dropshipping for you.

In other words, when you have a product out of stock and receive an order, just contact them to dropship it in those intances.

Now that doesn't change all the time that is neccessary on your part. But as I see it, that's part of what doing business is about. A big part.

Now, if you truly are tired of all the things neccessary for running a business then yes, it's time for a change. Better for you and better for the consumer. Nothing at all wrong with that. Been there, done that.

My own personal opinion is you don't split up a business/site in this manner. Not the best for customer service and customer retention. Customers need and want to know who it is they are conducting business with.

What happens when a customer purchases a product directly from you, and you also send them to an affialite site to purchase another?

I'd be more concerned with what could potentially happen to your customer base rather than what may happen to your rankings.

Dave

[cz]

Thanks Dave,

I should have mentioned that I get good traffic because of great placements in the engines and I'm worried about losing that only.

My products are maybe 1% return customers if even that high. The product is a one time purchase item. They last up to 30 years if maintained properly, so it's rare that I get a repeat buyer. That makes me not worried about the customer base.

The site I'll be sending them to, is truly the Mecca of a much larger niche, which my site only sells one product line of - a related accessory. This place has their website and an enormous brick & mortar store next to Grand Central Station in NYC and every floor is devoted to different related items in the "grander niche."

Their products are for amateur to professional users and the prices of related equipment is staggering. My customers know all about them when they come calling about information and price shopping. What if one clicks through and buys my product or checks out a competetive product and some other essential gear - runs into $1000's for a single sale?

Many of my customers don't give a dang about $$ as they work for MGM or Discovery Channel and every kind of Museum and Institute you could imagine and they want their stuff - yesterday! I could possibly make some huge commissions - if my site doesn't get affected in the SERPS because of some outbound affiliate links. That's what I'm concerned with, and only that.

Thanks again - I hope you'll post back on those outbound links and their affect on SEO.

[crankydave]

Theres a couple of threads (at least) regarding the nofollow on the forum.

The latest appears to be that the amount of available PR that would be normally passed by no follow links is lost. That is to say it does not get spread to the other followed links on the page. This is also provided that external and internal links are handled in the same way when it comes this. My guess is that this may be the case. My guess.

My suggestion would be to keep the links deeper when possible. Keep them limited where possible. And don't worry too much about it. Wait a month or 2 for it to settle in and make adjustments when/where/if needed.

Dave

[cz]

Thank you Dave - good advice! I'll be checking my serps and visitors daily for that website!

[tdave]

In my opinion,It doesn't get affected in the SERPS because you are not selling links and it just a affiliate links with nofollow tag. You can use php redirect for that matter.
I may concern more on the how you get ranking in the first place and keep up the good work.