why is my affiliate link appearing on seach engines?

[denzel1980]

I got an email from Lucas Kazan “We've noticed your lucaskazan.com affiliate link appears under the search term "lucaskazan.com" on search engines, especially Yahoo. We are disappointed to see this. We suspect you may have purchased this term to take away from our organic search engine traffic. I see you have a legitimate website through which you send us traffic, so we are confused by your affiliate link appearing in Yahoo. Please explain.”

That link is on my right sidebar of my blog at menofporn.typepad.com. It is shown on every post. And, I did not buy anything from Yahoo. I only submitted my main URL once at Yahoo and that was a year ago. So, why is my affiliate link appearing on Yahoo?

I am not a programmer so I don't know how to explain it to them technically why it's appearing on Yahoo.

I don't want to be removed as an Affiliate. It would be my first in 8 years since I joined an Affiliate program.

Denz

[abostonboy]

Ahh...

Yahoo is funny. Top links that webmasters PAY for appear as organic searches. However, Yahoo is notorious for picking up affiliate links. I have had two tours w/ aff links indexed as well as a couple join pages...

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=cock+dockers&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

Look at result #2. It got indexed.

You may want to ask lucaskazan to ask Yahoo what their algorithm is and why it is so easy to get aff links indexed with no work on the affiliates part.

[abostonboy]

What link are you on yahoo. Position?

[denzel1980]

Currently, its 3rd on page 1. Besides, my affiliate code is not the only one showing up.

Maybe, Yahoo linked to the site via the most clicked URLs which are the affiliate codes. The affiliate code contains lucaskazan.com.

[abostonboy]

Oh. That's simple. Your link got indexed by Yahoo.
www.lucaskazan.com/public/hosted/emiliano.php?code=affcode

Yahoo does this ALL the time.

Explain to him that the only way you can prevent this from happening is to put a robots.txt on your blog and have NOTHING indexed. That of course is stupid.

Webmasters get join pages indexed all the time. ANY sites that uses xyz.com/?=affcode stand a chance of getting that indexed by yahoo and appear in the organic results.

I had a sponsor that I ONLY marketed on BostonBoyz.com, which I no longer own, I have a few links w/ my aff code indexed by Yahoo and still make sales.

Yahoo thinks xyz.com/?=affcode is an unique page and can index it as it sees fit. It is really out of your control. Explain to him if you were buying that keyword, you would be on page one, not three.

[abostonboy]

p.s. He can come here and ask that question and I am SURE some SEO gurus will explain why it happens.

[abostonboy]

Maybe, Yahoo linked to the site via the most clicked URLs which are the affiliate codes. The affiliate code contains lucaskazan.com.

Maybe, but no one really knows what Yahoo's algorithm really is. IF you buy a spot on Yahoo and want to use your aff code, the url displayed does not have to contain the aff code. In fact most don't. You have a choice of displaying what url you want to be shown. Why would you buy an ad on yahoo and display your aff code? You would just have it say lucaskazan.com

It's pretty obvious that Yahoo likes his tour and is indexing pages with aff codes.

[abostonboy]

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=7874

Show him that page. He can chage robots.txt and kill those urls or setup 301s. It happens.

[abostonboy]

Sorry for being long winded.

Tell him to use FireFox and hover over the title and do a right click and copy link location then paste it in wordpad....

if it says rdre1.yahoo.com/click somewhere in the link, then it is a paid link.. If it doesn't then yahoo just decided to index. That's the best way to prove your point.

[tombarr]

I got an email from Lucas Kazan “We've noticed your lucaskazan.com affiliate link appears under the search term "lucaskazan.com" on search engines, especially Yahoo. We are disappointed to see this. We suspect you may have purchased this term to take away from our organic search engine traffic. I see you have a legitimate website through which you send us traffic, so we are confused by your affiliate link appearing in Yahoo. Please explain.”

That link is on my right sidebar of my blog at menofporn.typepad.com. It is shown on every post. And, I did not buy anything from Yahoo. I only submitted my main URL once at Yahoo and that was a year ago. So, why is my affiliate link appearing on Yahoo?

I am not a programmer so I don't know how to explain it to them technically why it's appearing on Yahoo.

I don't want to be removed as an Affiliate. It would be my first in 8 years since I joined an Affiliate program.

Denz

I'm actually kind of disappointed that Lucas Kazan went straight to an affiliate sending them traffic and basically accused them of theft, or cybersquatting, without even researching the issue and finding out how these listings and se bots work, choosing instead to demand that the affiliate tell them why this is happening.

Seems quite a bit heavy handed to me.

[basschick]

i felt the same way. plenty of programs like ars and trafficcash are perfectly happy if you spend your own money to make affiliate sales for their sites.


I'm actually kind of disappointed that Lucas Kazan went straight to an affiliate sending them traffic and basically accused them of theft, or cybersquatting, without even researching the issue and finding out how these listings and se bots work, choosing instead to demand that the affiliate tell them why this is happening.

Seems quite a bit heavy handed to me.

[denzel1980]

Sorry for being long winded.

Tell him to use FireFox and hover over the title and do a right click and copy link location then paste it in wordpad....

if it says rdre1.yahoo.com/click somewhere in the link, then it is a paid link.. If it doesn't then yahoo just decided to index. That's the best way to prove your point.

Thanks. I will definitely tell him about this one to prove it's not a paid link. The lucaskazan.com link has rdre1.yahoo.com/click while mine did not have one.

[denzel1980]

http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=7874

Show him that page. He can chage robots.txt and kill those urls or setup 301s. It happens.

Thanks, I just sent him this link.

[Nicedreams]

Why promote that site anyway with all the tour leaks?

Jimmy

[abostonboy]

Why promote that site anyway with all the tour leaks?

Jimmy

No kidding. That VOD banner at the bottom really sends a surfer to the VOD theater.

[gaydemon]

To be honest, you havent done anything wrong at all. All you done is post an affiliate link just as they want you to do. You should have to change anything, if Yahoo picks it up then thats just how it is. Its to be expected and nothing to do with what you done or not.

Its disappointing that Lucas has emailed you that way without as Lloyd says researched it.

Where can the link be seen, ive got problems finding it?

Has it happened to others?


I got an email from Lucas Kazan “We've noticed your lucaskazan.com affiliate link appears under the search term "lucaskazan.com" on search engines, especially Yahoo. We are disappointed to see this. We suspect you may have purchased this term to take away from our organic search engine traffic. I see you have a legitimate website through which you send us traffic, so we are confused by your affiliate link appearing in Yahoo. Please explain.”

That link is on my right sidebar of my blog at menofporn.typepad.com. It is shown on every post. And, I did not buy anything from Yahoo. I only submitted my main URL once at Yahoo and that was a year ago. So, why is my affiliate link appearing on Yahoo?

I am not a programmer so I don't know how to explain it to them technically why it's appearing on Yahoo.

I don't want to be removed as an Affiliate. It would be my first in 8 years since I joined an Affiliate program.

Denz

[MWCren]

It seems to me to be a simple situation where Yahoo has indexed your page. I have a BrokeStraightBoys link that was indexed by MSN and it still shows up in my BSB traffic stats. Mine was a text link with Broke Straight Boys as the link text. My intention was not to get indexed, my intention was to have people click on the link from the webpage.

If you don't have his URL in your meta key words, and you are simply promoting his site, you have no way of preventing the search engines from picking up a link. They do it all the time. You haven't done anything wrong, and he is over-reacting.

[rawTOP]

The thing to tell them is that if they wanted their site to do well in search engines, they haven't done what they need to do to make it happen. They need to have good content on their domain that search engines will like. The fact that a search engine thinks an affiliate page is one of the most important pages on their domain means they haven't done their job (if SEO is their objective).

The thread on "A Yahoo Tip (http://www.gaydemon.biz/showthread.php?p=1629)" touches on all of this and how it's actually working. One thing I noticed on an example given there was that if content sites don't want to have the affiliate pages on their site having authority they should have rel="nofollow" in every link that involves an affiliate. So the link from the tour page (or the FHG) to the join page should be nofollowed.

Basically every page on their site should sense whether there's an affiliate code in play, and if so, the links on the page should all have nofollow. It's easily done with a single meta tag at the top of the page. Doing that will solve much of their duplicate content problems on their affiliate pages (and hosted blogs, if they have them), though there are even better ways like putting the affiliate codes after a # rather than in a query parameter - but no one seems to be doing that for some reason...

[abostonboy]

Bjorn,

http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=lucaskazan.com&fr=yfp-t-501&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8

Just look at all the aff pages indexed by lucaskazan affiliates...

[LucasKazan]

I'd like to thank all who posted their comments here, and I'd also like to apologize to Denzel1980 for our heavy handed approach. He is a valued affiliate and we appreciate his help in this situation.

In the process of uncovering an underhanded affiliate, we assumed the affiliate links on Yahoo were underhanded as well, not realizing the fault lies with Yahoo, and to some extent, ourselves.

Thanks for all the tips. I will certainly follow up with them.

[abostonboy]

Lucas,

You seem like a class act. However I wouldn't worry too much about "Yahoo's fault". SE traffic is SE traffic. Be happy that it got indexed!

[LucasKazan]

Why promote that site anyway with all the tour leaks?

Jimmy

Affiliate traffic is routed to a leak free tour. You can see it here:

http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=926773-1111&PA=0000000

[Nicedreams]

Affiliate traffic is routed to a leak free tour. You can see it here:

http://refer.ccbill.com/cgi-bin/clicks.cgi?CA=926773-1111&PA=0000000

Ah good. I would mention on your webmaster page that you have a separate affiliate tour.

Jimmy

[abostonboy]

Ah good. I would mention on your webmaster page that you have a separate affiliate tour.

Jimmy

That would be a good idea and you would get more affiliates...

Lucas you have a PM btw.

[gaydemon]

Thanks for taking time to join and explain that. I'm sure its appriciated by all the you responded so quickly.


I'd like to thank all who posted their comments here, and I'd also like to apologize to Denzel1980 for our heavy handed approach. He is a valued affiliate and we appreciate his help in this situation.

In the process of uncovering an underhanded affiliate, we assumed the affiliate links on Yahoo were underhanded as well, not realizing the fault lies with Yahoo, and to some extent, ourselves.

Thanks for all the tips. I will certainly follow up with them.

[LucasKazan]

Ah good. I would mention on your webmaster page that you have a separate affiliate tour.

Jimmy


I will, thanks for the tip.

[tmt-Walter]

I'd like to thank all who posted their comments here, and I'd also like to apologize to Denzel1980 for our heavy handed approach. He is a valued affiliate and we appreciate his help in this situation.

In the process of uncovering an underhanded affiliate, we assumed the affiliate links on Yahoo were underhanded as well, not realizing the fault lies with Yahoo, and to some extent, ourselves.

Thanks for all the tips. I will certainly follow up with them.

Like Abostonboy said.
Class act.
looking for a 2 thumbs up smiley.

http://cbf.typepad.com/tech/images/2007/12/06/buddyc.jpg