Make Affiliate Links Count at the Engines
Aaron Wall uses a brilliant affiliate linking strategy for his SEOBook.com website that should be employed universally. A quick example – an affiliate link might point to http://www.seobook.com/rf/idevaffiliate.php?id=1706, but that URL re-directs to the book’s sale page URL – http://www.seobook.com/buy-now.shtml – using a 301.
Since the search engines count 301s as passing the link value, Aaron can have his cake (the affiliate tracking system) and eat it, too (by getting search engine link love). As you can see, it’s paid off to the tune of 950,000 links.
p.s. This doesn’t just apply to affiliate links, it works for any type of link that’s being pushed out but needs to be individually tracked.
UPDATE: SEOmoz reader Raffi Vartanian had the following to add:
It looks like the affiliate program that Aaron is using offers “SEO Links” as an upgrade to their regular package: http://www.idevdirect.com/module_seo.php
It states on the page, “The module also uses 301 redirects rather than traditional 302’s. This means all the “link juice” is carried from page to page.”
So it’s not really Aaron’s doing as much as it is the service he is using. Unless, of course, Aaron owns idevdirect.com, in which case, nevermind
However, on another note, there is an affiliate program called LinkConnector ( www.linkconnector.com) which allows the use of “naked links”. They put a script on the target site that checks for the referrer of incoming traffic. If the referrer is a client of theirs, it gives them credit for the sale. Kinda neat.
Thanks, Raffi – definitely appreciate your contribution.
