One of the biggest concerns for most affiliate marketers is handling affiliate links from an SEO perspective .
One way to ensure your affiliate site thrives and isn’t penalized for affiliate links is to make sure your content layer adds value. Affiliate sites should also be promoted and maintained like any other high-quality site.
I have a web hosting affiliate site and most of the time, each blog post will include 1-2 affiliate links. Somehow, with the recent YMYL update, traffic has increased and it now ranks in the top 10 for a lot of profitable keywords. I've been very lucky, but to make sure Google doesn't penalize me for using affiliate links, I've made a few adjustments that I'll discuss after the video.
How Google handles affiliate links (rel="sponsored") in search engine rankings
Matt Cutts on affiliate links and SEO:
Now, those who follow SEO and Google search updates must know about a Google engineer: Matt Cutts.
At the recent SEM Expo conference , Matt Cutts talked about how Google handles affiliate links and what we can do if we are concerned about them.
In most cases, Google handles affiliate links without any problem as they are aware of most affiliate networks, but if you are still concerned, you can add nofollow links or sponsored links to such monetary links.
Now, if you are not familiar with the term nofollow, you can refer to our previous guide: How to add a nofollow tag to your links . For how to add a rel=sponsored link, read on…
How to Handle Affiliate Links and SEO in WordPress:
Over the past 13+ years, I have tried many great WordPress affiliate plugins and finally found one that works best in all situations, including SEO optimization. There are many paid and free affiliate plugins on the market, and one of them is ThirstyAffiliates . You can find detailed information about this plugin in one of my previous articles:
In the plugin settings, you can add a no-follow attribute to all the links you hide using this plugin, which will help you stop passing link juice to affiliate links.
2021 Update:
In a recent update, the Google Search Center team clarified that “we require sites participating in our affiliate program to qualify those links with rel=”sponsored”, regardless of whether those links are created manually or dynamically.”
If you don’t add rel=”sponsored” then “our systems may also take algorithmic action. Both manual and algorithmic actions can impact how we see your site in search results, so it’s best to avoid situations that could lead to action whenever possible.”
You can read the guidelines here and learn more about rel=sponsored here .
How to add rel=sponsored to all affiliate links?
Depending on the solution you use to block affiliate links, the steps will vary. Here I share the settings for the two most commonly used affiliate plugins:
- thirsty-affiliates
- Pretty Links
Thirsty Affiliates: Add Rel=sponsored to all links
Go to Thirsty Affiliates > Settings > Link Appearance and search for "Other rel attribute tags"
Here just add “sponsored” and it will add rel=sponsored to all affiliate links cloaked using Thirsty affiliate plugin.
Pretty Links:
If you use Pretty links, go to Pretty links > Options and enable Sponsorships.
Using the above method, you will be able to add rel=sponsored to all of your old affiliate links and make your blog compliant with the new Google outbound linking rules.
Anyway, I recommend you to use Thirsty Affiliates or other plugins to mask your affiliate links, because the default links look ugly and may reduce click-through rate. If you are new to affiliate marketing, you can read the following articles:
- Affiliate vs. Adsense: Which is Better?
- Commission Junction: Is it the best place for affiliate marketers?
- How to Make Money with the Amazon Affiliate Program
How do you handle your affiliate sites and what methods do you use to handle SEO for such money links?
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