Comments on: Warning: “Thin Affiliate Sites”

By: Lynn Terry

Lynn Terry — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 03:55:19 +0000

Great question, and I discuss that in detail in this post:
http://www.clicknewz.com/1479/how-to-optimize-an-ecommerce-site/

You should definitely add a blog, or at least content pages, to your product based sites. And of course a lot of the SEO (when it comes to Google at least) has to do with your OFF-page optimization (meaning your inbound links).

By: Lynn

Lynn — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:07:09 +0000

I’m a little confused by this because there are many niche sites that are just product related that do not have articles and content. For instance Lynn…..you had a blog post a couple years back giving a link to a site you put up called “CorkItUp”. It was a niche site that you shared with your readers to show I guess how you can use WordPress to make static niche sites instead of the blog format.

It was a great site showing all the different dart products and they linked up to whatever vendor you were affiliating for (not sure if they were through Pepperjam)….but anyway…..it was just a product site with no articles, blog posts, content (that I remember)…..just a shopping site. I would not call it a “thin” site because it was very well laid out (using datafeeds I believe), but there was no “content” per se.

So, now I’m confused because I have both self-hosted WordPress “blogs” and a couple of “product” sites similar to “CorkItUp” except I have to do it manually without having datafeeds since most affiliate products I promote do not have that option.

Also, I was always wondering how a site like your “CorkItUp” – if you still have it – can be optimized with SEO/keyword phrases since it was just links to the products (with pictures and descriptions)

By: Flash Design

Flash Design — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 14:27:31 +0000

It was a great explanation of affiliate sites. It is widely known Google doesn’t like pure affiliate sites and I believe many people do not clearly understand what that means.

If your site does provide a high value to the visitor it is valuable in Google’s eyes even if you have few affiliate links in there. I suggest you write great content. In fact, do not put any affiliate link on your site until you have at least 30 pure content pages. This will keep your mind thinking of ways to provide value to your visitors.

By: FTC to Regulate Social Media Marketing | ClickNewz! Internet Marketing Blog

FTC to Regulate Social Media Marketing | ClickNewz! Internet Marketing Blog — Mon, 25 May 2009 13:31:03 +0000

[...] Warning: “Thin Affiliate Sites” [...]

By: Traffic Matters

Traffic Matters — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 16:16:13 +0000

How do site owners expect to get visitors if they don’t post origional high quality content?

I really do wonder sometimes

By: Google Likes Value | Web Marketing Advice

Google Likes Value | Web Marketing Advice — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 22:11:59 +0000

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By: Learn Internet Marketing

Learn Internet Marketing — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 20:59:37 +0000

Absolutely! Most affiliate websites lack original content.Instead of adding value through publishing personal unbiased reviews, tips or recommendations, they simply paraphrase infomercials and create false hype. You’ve read one, you’ve read them all! Too many fancy graphics with no unique/original experience-based content will destroy your brand.

By: Paramita

Paramita — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 07:45:51 +0000

This is an excellent information for all of us. Thanking you for sharing with us. Its help me a lot. I will save it.

By: Tony

Tony — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:07:28 +0000

Thank you for sharing this info, this is very helpful for me.

By: Jayson

Jayson — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 09:07:57 +0000

Thanks for great information.

By: Peter - Rocket Spanish

Peter - Rocket Spanish — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 18:32:54 +0000

There are probably more affiliate sites on the net than there are pages of actual content. I don’t see a problem with them as long as they provide some useful reviews. Keep in mind that affiliate sites are only there because of the sites that offer an affiliate program and that encourage this type of setup.
Peter

By: Allan Gardyne | AssociatePrograms.com

Allan Gardyne | AssociatePrograms.com — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:27:22 +0000

Lynne, Thanks for the mention. Much appreciated!

Zupko, I’m not sure if your question was joking or serious, so I hope my reply won’t offend you. I’m sure most of us know that affiliates earn money in many different ways. I recently wrote an article on 53 ways to make money with affiliate programs, and I certainly didn’t list all of them.

My article on “thin affiliates” was aimed at affiliates who aim to get their visitors free from search engines, from “organic search”, as some people call it.

In total contrast, the Arbitrage Conspiracy guys use PPC marketing and tools such as SpeedPPC, which is a totally different type of affiliate marketing.

By: Laman Richards

Laman Richards — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 13:41:34 +0000

Being quite new to Affiliate Marketing I found you post on thin affiliate sites very interesting. Thanks for quoting from Allan Gardyne’s article explaining Goggle’s perspective on thin affiliate sites this really open my eyes to being aware when doing affiliate marketing.

By: Internet Marketing Strategies

Internet Marketing Strategies — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 00:33:30 +0000

Wow. Those quotes from Google were very powerful. The term ‘offensive’ was used a lot and felt strong; it gave a powerful feeling.

How many times have I been taught by so many ‘gurus’ to create a doorway page to the affiliate site; wow I won’t be doing that!

Thanks for the great post,

Daniel Tetreault.

By: Justice O. Omorodion

Justice O. Omorodion — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 12:07:47 +0000

Its true that many people pull out content from their merchant website and place it on their affiliate site for the sake of earning commission. Google see those pages as irrelevant content and they never include those pages in their search index.

One day when I was reading Google blog about affiliates and their act of duplicating content from other website.

Here’s what the writer said that intrigued me, he said if you’re trying to sell stuff from amazon.com as an affiliate and you pull all your content from amazon and slap it on your site in order to earn commission without adding real content of your own.

The writer went ahead to explained that, if you think you could out rank amazon you pulled all your content from you better go think again because that’s not going to possible.