Affiliate Marketing: Whose site is this anyway?
I made an annoying discovery the other week: my site was tanking in Google, and they thought it was about PC World and Misco. I’d put affiliate ads on my home page to recommend some relevant products - or so I thought. But once I’d written about them, loaded the banners and added the accessible alternative text for those without javascript and images, that was a lot of mentions for unusual keywords that didn’t fit my web content as well as I’d thought. My home page had lost its focus.
So I moved the affiliate content (mostly) off the main pages and into separate areas in subdirectories, like a resources section and a shop. I’ll keep an eye on how this arrangement works and consider blocking those subdirectories from search engines altogether (although surprisingly, while trailing way down in Google listings I was on page one in Yahoo and MSN - what the ?!?).
I hope I’ve cut them down enough now, but it’s easy to overdo it with affiliate ads, and sometimes it takes an outsider (like Google, unfortunately) to make you realise it. I hope I make a comeback soon.