Thin affiliate

[melaniejk]

Hi.
I was reading a blog that was about being what google calls a Thin Affilate.
Apparently, they don't want them to rank well in their listings and consider them spam. Ok, I agree that I wouldn't want to see a site that is nothing but links to other sites in the top results.

However, they were saying that if you only had one or two kinds of affilates you were then considered a Thin Affilate. And, that it was better to have a grouping of different affialites.

Now, I don't think that's fair. On my site, 90 percent of my affiliate links are for one company.

My SERPs, # of BL in Google, G directory listing, and PR have all continued to drop since I added more links to this same affiliate program. My BLs have increased in other search engines.

Has anyone else heard of this "Thin Affilate" theory? Does it have any merit?

I'm starting to wonder if my site is being hurt by this?

Thank you.

[wrockca]

That brings up another point, can affiliate programs hurt a website owner if they have one-way links coming to the site but using companies that have the link go to them and then passes the visitor to the correct site?

.

[Cygnus]

I think in some sectors, having multiple affiliates programs is more spammy than one. If I offer auto insurance, I'm only going to offer 1 (the best) to my consumers -- if I am providing specific products, I may only choose to work with one program because it offers the best price, selection, quality, etc.

Penalizing on the sole basis of using one program versus multiple, overlapping programs is misguided IMHO.

Cygnus