Affiliate links reduces your seo points?

[ameerulislam]

Can any one tell me whether Google or any other search engines consider's affiliate links as a negative point. Or may be there is a cap with number of affiliate linkson a page? I'm also thinking of adding rel="nofollow" .But I'm not sure if some how that will halt affiliate tracking and result in commission loss (as far as my knowledge goes it shouldn't distract the tracker) .

Your comments please. !

[deepsand]

First, the easy part: "nofollow" has no effect on anything other than how a particular SE treats the link for indexing purposes.

As for affiliate links being deprecated, and while no SE has, to the best of my knowledge, made any public statement re. such, given that such are both commonplace and serve a legitimate purpose, one should expect that, with respect to ones Link Profile, they be evaluated in the same manner as any other.

Also, bear in mind that simply because you know that there is an affiliate involved does not mean that any SE possesses that explicit knowledge. Thus, "bad" affiliates will be discovered and handled in the same manner as would any other "bad" site.

[mjtaylor]

Affiliate back links is a great way of improving your websites ranking with the search engines if you do it the right way. Avoid too many affiliate links!

And what, in your opinion, is the right way?

I do think it's more likely that their presence could indicate a lack of quality to Google. It certainly does to me, personally. Not one or two, mind you, as a small proportion of the links leaving a page or site.

Frankly, I can't imagine how affiliate links could have a positive impact on SERPs, but I am open to instruction.

The rel-nofollow attribute will only affect the passage of PageRank and that analogous 'link juice" in other SEs, so that's a perfectly good way to say you aren't "endorsing" the page with "link love."