“NoFollow” and Affiliate Links

In an effort to improve our own SEO, we know that your own personal SEO efforts are just as important to us. One simple thing that we are requesting (and suggesting for your own sake) is for when you are adding new affiliate links pointing to our site (and even updating your existing links), is to add rel=”nofollow” to your links.

What are “follow” and “nofollow” links?
When you link to an outside site, Google sees this as a vote of confidence for that site. It passes authority from your site to the site that you are linking to. Over the years, Google has changed how they look at this in an effort to cut down on people trying to game the system. They introduced “nofollow” tags that would stop this authority passing from your site to your linked site. Affiliate links are used with the intention of being compensated, so Google recommends that links of these types have “nofollow” added to them – they are ok with you making money as long as you don’t try passing it off as a confidence vote.

Why You Should Add “nofollow”?
While Google says that they believe they can handle affiliate links as such, they also say that if you’re still concerned then you should add rel=”nofollow” to your links. Affiliate links, for example in banners or text links, may also be seen as paid links, which Google frowns upon as well.

In addition, if you have too many external links on your site without using the “nofollow” tag, it will dilute Google’s trust in your site and may become seen as more spammy than it is in reality.

How To Add “nofollow” To Your Links
It’s very easy! Your link code should look something like this:

<a href=""http://www.link.com">text</a>

Simply add rel=”nofollow” to it like this:

<a href="http://www.link.com" rel="nofollow">text</a>

For more information, here are a few links:

What You Need To Know About Rel Nofollow Links
Google’s Matt Cutts On Affiliate Links
Google Webmaster Quality Guidelines