Does the affiliate link code hurt your backlinking efforts?

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   Bendo13posted 12 years ago

   I have been wondering lately if including your little affiliate code when you link to your hubs actually hurts your backlinking efforts or not?
   
   Because you're directing all your links to this lengthened link with your affiliate code in it and THEN it goes to your page.
   
   So does Google see all those links as a link to your article on here or does it see them as links to the article with the affiliate code in them?
   
   Kind of like ClickBank affiliate links do nothing for boosting the amount of links pointing to a site because they redirect people to the site. 
   
   Just curious if this is an issue or not.
   
   Let me know, thanks!

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      Marisa Wrightposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Yes.  I forget the technical answer, but basically the type of forwarding that's used doesn't affect the value of the backlink.

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         Bendo13posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Oh ok... I was going to stop using my affiliate link if it did.  Thanks for the update!

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      vexezposted 12 years agoin reply to this

      Did you mean using the Hubpages tracking referral code for linking to your own hub?
      
      To be precise on the answer - No.
      
      Backlinking with your HP affiliate link to your own hub does NOT hurt your backlinking efforts you've done. From my experiences and analysis so far, No backlinking will "hurt" your backlinking effort in terms of SEO.
      
      Using HP affiliate links does not hurt, it just doesn't bring value to your page. If you noticed, when using the affiliate tracking link, you'll be redirected to the original url instead of your tracking url. A redirect does not add backlink value to the destination page. The only thing gained is traffic and affiliate opportunity.
      
      Ultimately it depends on what is your objective of the link. If you are linking for affiliate purpose, like encouraging users to join Hubpages with your affiliate link, using the tracking link does help to track and cache. If they end up signing up for Hubpages, you will get the referral benefits which is 10% ads impression lifetime.
      
      Most of the time if you are just linking to your own Hub, there's no point using an affiliate link. You are already earning 60% ads impressions on your hub, I don't think the referral impressions will stack.
      
      Using the affiliate tracking link to link to other hubpages does help and is one of the main purpose of the tracking link because you gain impression on other people's hub.

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         vexezposted 12 years agoin reply to this

         Just to add on a little on the part where it does not hurt SEO.
         
         It does not make sense and it's not fair if search engines were to judge by having bad backlinks to your page. This would indirectly mean - if I have a competitor ranking better than me, I'll spam tons of filthy links to his page to degrade his SEO efforts.
         
         No it doesn't work that way.

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         Bendo13posted 12 years agoin reply to this

         That's what I was thinking... I thought  that maybe because it was a redirect that it wouldn't really be boosting my ranking.
         
         I think I would much rather have a higher ranking in the search engines than have the chance of getting a referral.  People on the outside of this site are the ones who really click the ads and buy things.
         
         So perhaps I should stop using it when getting backlinks?
         I guess the same would go for internal links from one of my hubs to another, because it'd be a redirect and wouldn't be as strong of interlinking.

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            vexezposted 12 years agoin reply to this

            It depends on your purpose and situation.
            
            Some scenario here.
            
            If your hub is already ranking pretty well in search engine and you happen to write a new hub that needs to link to that hub. Since you are already doing well in ranking and traffic, you'd want to use referral link instead.
            
            If your hub is about some products or just to gain ads earning, you'll want to have links that gives value. But if your hub is about asking people to join hubpages or related, you'll want to have affiliate links in them.
            
            It's kinda situation and individual preferences.

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            1. 76

               Bendo13posted 12 years agoin reply to this

               Yeah, I'm talking more about new hubs... when you want to get the ball rolling and get a couple strong backlinks to it.
               
               I don't know, I might just stop using the referral links for that type of linking because I know some of the power is lost through the redirects.

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   Joy56posted 12 years ago

   i dont know does it.....

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      Bendo13posted 12 years agoin reply to this

      It appears I posted this in the wrong section... I'd move it if I could.

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3. 78

   QuestionMasterposted 12 years ago

   From the staff:
   
   http://hubpages.com/forum/topic/1707#post8575

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