We all know that content is king and affiliates that will succeed and prosper need to be adding value to avoid duplicate penalties by search engines. I know the issue of “Google’s Spam Recognition Guide for Raters” is being discussed at a lot of places right now. This article from the AssociatePrograms Newsletter sums it up well and divulges the HUMAN algos that Google has trained it’s human mods to look for when deciding good affiliate sites from bad. There are also links to some of the major forums discussions about the topic. AssociatePrograms.com – Are you a “thin affiliate”? If you have not read this important info yet, you REALLY need to!

Google says:
“We differentiate between affiliates that produce extra service, value, or content, and those that simply are duplicates of other sites, set up to boost traffic to other sites and earn a commission for it. The former ones are not Offensive and should be rated on the merits to the query. The latter ones are Offensive…

“Thin affiliate doorways are sites that usher people to a number of Affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. A site certainly has the right to try to earn income; we’re attempting to identify sites that do nothing but act as a commission-earning middleman.”

To Google, affiliate links such as qksrv.net, bfast.com and myaffiliateprogram.com – on the page or in redirects – “strongly suggest” that the site is a thin affiliate.

Are you using an affiliate datafeed? To Google, that’s another warning sign.

Discuss this important topic at our new 5 Star Forums!