If you participate in an affiliate program, this post should be beneficial to you. It’s how to link with your affiliate code but conceal your affiliate link.

Affiliate links are usually not search engine friendly, so making them a bit more friendly is always beneficial. There are FOUR EASY STEPS to setup your affiliate links and this can work for any affiliate links you might have.

This not only helps you make the links friendly, but if the affiliate link ever changes, it’s as simple as changing one line in your affiliate link file and it’s updated on all of your pages.

Regarding what to name your affiliate file(s), I originally said to name it unique to your own site. After thinking further, I realized that a lot of webmasters want to completely hide who they’re working with from the search engines. If this is something that is a concern for you, here are two additional steps to add:

 

 

• Name your affiliate file with common words found on all sites. Example names: file.php, html.php, page.php, add.php

  Or make it even tougher and use their names: google.php, search.php, yahoo.php, googlebot.php

   

   

• Now prevent search bots from following your links. Use the rel=”nofollow” when linking to your affiliate file. For example, if you name your affiliate file “google.php”, link to the file like this:

  <a href="/path/to/google.php" rel="nofollow">Affiliate</a>

  You can also use your robots.txt file to block them from reading your affiliate file(s).

  Disallow: /path/to/google.php

Of course, the last two steps are only necessary if you want to disguise who you’re affiliated with. I am seeing more and more affiliate links in the SERP’s ranked really well, so if you don’t need to hide things, shoot for being ranked. Having your affiliate link ranked well translates into more money in your pocket!

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I happened to notice something the other day –

vBulletin-faq.com always has been near the top of the Google Serps for almost any vBulletin related keyword I sought after. Normally, if you search for "vBulletin" you get vBulletin.com, vBulletin.org, Wikipedia vBulletin page then vBFAQ. To my delight I noticed the other day that vBulletin-faq.com replaced Wikipedia in that slot and now ranks ahead:

So I started looking around and found Wikipedia has dropped a few spots in the rankings on various other searches. Now this isnt scientific, its just a casual observation on my part. But it makes me wonder if this is just a fluke change in algorithim or is Google starting to downgrade wikipedia in anticipation of the upcoming Google Knol? I would like to hear other’s thoughts on this so leave a comment.

While we’re on the subjects of Wikipedia and Google, I ran across this:

The professor of media studies at the University of Brighton has had enough of students turning in "banal and mediocre work" and decided that Google and Wikipedia must go. Tara Brabazon provides her students with a reading list, of books, and expects their work to reference those works, rather than a rehash of a Wikipedia entry or the top five results from Google. To achieve this she has, reportedly, banned her students using search engines and Wikipedia. ( http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/15/wiki_google_ban)

I found it humorous.

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As I posted awhile ago, one of my goals for 2008 is to significantly increase my affiliate sales income.  I started this month by choosing a particular subject area to focus in. I’m not going to reveal it at this time but will at some point. (sorry folks, I dont want more competition just yet)

Im happy to report so far so good. I have spent about $350 on Google Adwords and taken in about $1,370 in affiliate revenue so far this month. Pretty good for the first 2 weeks I think. So, I know I am on the right track. Just a few statistics to point out where I am at for this month:

• Impressions: 116,931
• Clicks (from adwords): 1,429
• Ad Clicks On Page: 894
• AdWords Cost: $331.56
• Earnings: $1369.92

So I seem to be converting well so far. 63% of the people that come to the page click through to an advertiser.

The next step is to refine what I have done so far in order to further improve. One thing I have noticed is that I am really not placing well with Google AdWords. What I mean by that is I am paying more for clicks then I probably need to be, and not ranking as high. When I look at my Keyword Quality Score for each phrase Google is ranking them either"ok" or "poor" — which means I have to pay more to have my ad’s display. Many of my keywords are not displaying the ad on the first page even.

Just as a point of reference, Google Adwords gives you a Keyword Quality Score for each keyword. You can read more about that on the Google Adwords Blog.

So, I started looking at my landing page. Landing Pages are nothing more than information-rich pages. They suit search engines by providing rich content, and they help human users, by providing clearly focussed pages to find information they need, and help direct them to specialist internal pages for further information as required. And it suits the webmaster, because it allows the traffic to be targeted in a much more precise manner.

Now, I am advertising several different companies which provide similar products. My landing page is designed to educate the reader about the topic a bit and then offer them several choices, comparing those choices and offering reviews of some of them. When I designed the page, naturally I optimized it for search engines and to sell the products. However, according to the Keyword Quality Scores, I didnt do so well apparantly. So now I need to research some of the finer points and see how I can improve that quality score.

More on this in the next post. Please feel free to post comments and suggestions as to resources you think I should look at to help this research along and make necessary improvements.

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I received this email today:

Hello AdSense publisher,

We are writing to share some important information with you about
referrals to the AdSense product. As part of ongoing efforts to
optimize revenue opportunities for our publishers, we are
constantly experimenting with new revenue-enhancing features as
well as tweaking those products already available to our
publishers.
In this spirit, we will be making some significant changes to
referrals for the AdSense program in the coming weeks.

As some of you may remember, in February 2007, as an experiment,
we raised the bounty paid (from $100 to $250) when a publisher you
refer brings in $100.  We have decided to conclude this experiment
and return to the original paid bounty amount of $100. In
addition, we will no longer be offering the $5 bounty for the
first $5 that a referred publisher brings in or the $2,000 bonus
for referring 25 publishers earning $100 or more in any 180 day
period. $100 will be the only bounty paid for referrals to the
AdSense program.

If you’re currently displaying referral units on your site
directing users to sign up for AdSense, read on below for details
about what to expect in the coming weeks.

In early January, your AdSense account will be updated to only
note the $100 payment for referring users to AdSense. You will
continue to be paid under the current bounty structure ($5, $250,
$2,000) until late January, after which you will receive $100 once
a referred publisher brings in $100 within 180 days.

Thank you for referring users to AdSense in the past. We
apologize for any inconvenience this news may cause.

Sincerely,

The Google AdSense Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

 What this basically says is that Google is reducing the referral payments. Now, if you refer someone to Adsense, you only get paid if they earn $100 in the first 6 months they are on the program, and then, you only get $100 as a referral fee. Currently you receive $5 when they earn their first $5, and then, you received $250 when that publisher you referred earned $100. Plus, you receive $2000 if you bring in 25 of those $100 publishers in 6 months. All that is gone. Now, you will only receive $100 as a referral payment, and you only receive that if the publisher earns $100 within the first 6 months.

I guess Google doesnt really need referrals so much anymore.

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