Do you honestly, hand on heart, believe that you alone hold the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? That no-one else on this planet can have an opinion other than yours? That no-one ever buys the products that you don't like?

If that's the case then, sadly, you are misinformed and deluded.

People DO buy stuff you don't like. And if you are an affiliate of it then you will make money when they buy, yes?

In my book, the customer is always right. If they want to buy stuff from me they're welcome to. Just 'cos I say it's crap does not prevent them from telling me I'm wrong and they're gonna buy it anyway.

No, Chris, maybe I didn't make my example clear. For example, if I was to write, "And so even though this product promises to help you do X,Y,Z, I feel that it is half-hearted in it's attempt to meet our/it's expectations. By the way, folks, if you'd like to purchase this product, you can find it at www.xxxxxxxxxxx.com.

Is that what you meant? Or did you mean to let the public KNOW that the person writing the poor review is also an affiliate?
For example: Hey, folks, the performance is poor, but if you'd like to purchase it, you can purchase it through me at the following link; www.xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx.com.

Please help me out here.

It's your choice. Personally I'm happy with either.

I'd word things slightly differently eg in your first example I wouldn't use "By the way ...". I'd probably say "If it still meets your requirements ...".

Both examples are perfectly valid.

And I couldn't ask for a better endorsement. Thank you Kyle, I'm very humbled.

This all reminds me of The fall and rise of Reginald Perrin, if you have never seen it it's where a man disenfranchised from the world gets his revenge by starting a shop called Grot which sells totally pointless and useless items, he does this on purpose wanting it to fail and it does the complete reverse and becomes a sensation.

You are right, people will buy some things and the rest of us might not understand why but if you are happy to sell something and you can sleep at night believing it has value of some kind then that's all you need.

Not even hanging stopped people doing stupid things.

Enjoyed this post and the comments.

It looks to me that you have taken no notice at all of the WA training. We are told by WA - over and over again - that Google hates affiliate links so don't do it.

Dear Chris,
It looks like you don't read comments from other in detail.
Sure I know Google hate affiliate links. I'm not talking about putting various links within one page. What I'm saying is related with your discussion as above. As you say and even in training of WA say that it will be better to put links of respective company even we do the negative review of that company. So, what I'm saying is if we want that negative review come first page in Google, then it is better we should not put affiliate links of respective companies in those negative reviews (Means it is better to forget low earnings which we can made from those companies)
Hope now you understand what I mean.

I'm guessing there is some level of re-interpretation going on here. I'll try to unravel some of it, but this is messy in written form.

There's a difference between having a page "ranked", and having a page "with affiliate links". They do not have to be the same page.

Let's say you have 2 pages, Page "A" and Page "B". You do whatever it is that you need to do to get page "A" ranked, and you just let Page "B" do whatever it does.

In page "A" you can have an internal link (not an affiliate link) to page "B". That does not damage Page "A" ranking.

In page "B" have the affiliate link. Page "B" isn't ranked anyway, so the affiliate link does it no harm.

Dear Chris,
That is what I'm saying. We do negative reviews so that we can show people that company is bad and let them drive to our recommended products/companies by providing internal links to our recommend product page through that negative review page. About this I'm already clear. We are not talking about it here. I don't know why you are not understand me. What I'm saying is when we do negative reviews of some product or company, then putting link of that product or company within our respective review page will rank down our that review page little bit in search engine.
If we don't put our affiliate link within that review page and only put internal link to drive people into our recommended product page, then that negative review will rise up within the search engine and we get better traffic. So, what I'm saying is that there are both negative and positive points of putting affiliate links of negative reviews products/companies. Positive point is that we can get benefit from affiliate commissions even from our not recommended product as mention above within your Blog. But, the negative point will be that we may not get traffic from that review if that doesn't rise in the first page in Google. So, what I'm suggesting is that we can first try by putting affiliate link of our not recommended companies within that negative review page. But, later on if we find out that our review page is displaying in 2nd or 3rd page in Google, then it is better we delete affiliate link of that product so that it will have chance to come in first page. There is not point of writing reviews if we can't get traffic.
Hope now you understand.

This is the principle behind using redirects such as those provided by Pretty Link. There are other benefits, but this is one that others have frequently cited. It redirects directly, without requiring a Page "B".

What's your experience with redirects for affiliate links?

Dennis

I have mixed views on redirects.

Google has frequently stated its preference for "transparent links" ie the user can see clearly, in advance, the true URL of the page to which he will be taken. Any kind of "link cloaking" runs counter to that.

I'm not aware of whether Google is currently acting on that preference, but I would not be surprised to find out that it does, or that it will soon. To me this is just another Panda/Penguin waiting to happen.

On the topic of "pretty link", I could not find that plugin when I went hunting today. There are dozens of alternatives. Has it died?

You're right Chris. Google doesn't like cloaked links.

Matt Cutts was very clear about it at http://www.theshortcutts.com/ (neat site by the way!) Search for cloaking on that page, and check out the video Matt Cutt did on Aug 17, 2011. The bottom line is that Google considers cloaking to be a practice in which users are shown content which is different that that shown to Google bot. Clearly that isn't happening here; everyone winds up at the same landing page - bot and human alike.

Matt Cutts talks specifically about affiliate link redirects at http://www.stonetemple.com/articles/interview-matt-cutts-012510.shtml He didn't endorse them, but he didn't slam them either. A quick search for "affiliate" on that page brings you to the appropriate part of the interview. Heck, Google even provides a cloaking or redirection service to anyone who'd like to use it! Just go to https://goo.gl/

Pretty Link uses 301 redirects in exactly the manner you described (Page "A" -> Page "B"). That's exactly the same technique as is used to redirect SiteRubix content to your own domain when using the 'Move' button. If WA is good with it, I'm good with it too.

Yoast did a bit about the benefits of cloaking at https://yoast.com/cloak-affiliate-links/ I'll add one more benefit to those he listed. Pretty Link lets me create tracking links to verify clicks and conversion rates.

For what it's worth, Pretty Link (the free Lite version and Pro) is alive and well, and can be found at https://prettylinkpro.com/

The reason for my question was that I was curious to know if anyone had tested the use of redirects versus raw affiliate links. Do they work better - as Yoast seems to think?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Dennis

You've given me a lot of food for thought, and I'll be busy for a while on this.

One tiny quibble that caught my eye - WA/SiteRubix uses 301 redirect, as you say, but Pretty Link uses 307, if I'm not mistaken.

Hi Chris -

The truth of the matter is that both the Lite and the Pro versions will do 301 (permanent) and 302 / 307 (temporary) redirects. I like the fact that I can begin creating a web site with a 307 redirects on many pages which lead directly to a custom landing page at WA. The example I used in an earlier response was http://wealthyaffiliatecoach.org/earn .

When I want to change my funnel and direct traffic to an intermediate page (for example, a review page for WA, *before* going to the custom WA landing page), all I have to do is change that link in Pretty Link. That will automatically handle changing all the links which previously pointed directly to the custom WA landing page.

See https://prettylinkpro.com/features/ for more info about the 301 / 302 / 307 redirect capabilities of Lite and Pro.

It's a thing of beauty and a joy to behold! (imho ;-)

Dennis