26 replies to this topic

[turbocashuk]

Hello everyone.

I am sure this question has been asked before. If it has, sorry for the inconvenience - if a thread could be posted that would be great.

I am setting up an affiliate program to my site using www.myurl.com/asdf?d=2&e=3 etc etc.

All I need to know is will the incoming links count toward obtaining a higher search ranking. I understand the SEs dont look at anything after the ?. But if you already have your url before that with maybe some keywords are those at least taken into account?

eg www.turbocashuk.com/accounting-offer.asp?g=56&d=.......

Will this link on other sites help my listings in the SEs?

[SearchRank]

If you are asking if a URL such as myurl.com/asdf?d=2&e=3 will be looked at as a "vote" or link to myurl.com, I would have to say that the answer is no. It will be counted as a link to the page it lands on which in this case is myurl.com/asdf?d=2&e=3.

Google in particular does not look at all the links pointing to a particular site but rather on a page by page basis. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this.

[turbocashuk]

Aha. Well that implies then that asp pages with query strings are each treated as separate pages. And since you're always going to have unique pages (the whole point of the query string!), it will not help your placings in the search engines for your home page at all.
Am I correct here?

[turbocashuk]

One other thing - is there any way of determining where the user has come from other than using query strings with your link in it?

[SearchRank]

One other thing - is there any way of determining where the user has come from other than using query strings with your link in it?

I believe you could use something like myurl.com?source=affiliate1, myurl.com?source=affiliate2, etc. and it would count as a link to the main URL. I am not certain of this though. Maybe someone else on the forum who has any experience with this can add their two cents?

You could most likely track these referrers with cookies and a database or even traffic reporting software that can generate reports from your server's log files.

[mopacfan]

using the referrer is what I would recommend. This way you don't have to use different query strings and therefore your main url will get the "credit".

[turbocashuk]

Hi Mocacfan
How do you use a referrer. What do you do?

[mopacfan]

In your code (this is an asp example) you can set a variable to the value of the http referrer value and then you can use that value to determine where the visitor came in from:

x = Request.ServerVariables("http_referrer")

You just need to know the value before hand to have something with which to compare.

response.write Request.ServerVariables("http_referrer")

Use something like this to display the value to the screen on a test page. Put it on your server then go the the affiliate's web site and click from there to your site and read the returned value.

I hope that was not too confusing.

[turbocashuk]

Thanks. Didnt know it was so easy!
Why then do they use query strings for affiliates - this way seems so much easier!

BTW, do you have to use an ASP page to do it?

[BrianR]

Google in particular does not look at all the links pointing to a particular site but rather on a page by page basis. Somebody correct me if I'm wrong on this.

That's my understanding, David. But I think (but I'm not sure) that PR on the Google toolbar is for the site - yes??

BrianR

[Ron Carnell]

Nope, the PR in the toolbar is per page, too. Sometimes it will "look" site-wide if a lot of pages aren't in the index, because the toolbar will "guess" what the PR should be based on the parent page.

You'll want to be a little careful using http_referrer. Not all browsers pass it, and of course no spider will pass it, so you want to make sure your tracking program can handle an empty value without going spastic.

[BrianR]

Nope, the PR in the toolbar is per page, too. Sometimes it will "look" site-wide if a lot of pages aren't in the index, because the toolbar will "guess" what the PR should be based on the parent page.

Thanks, Ron - didn't know that - I saw that most of them had the same PR so assumed it was applied across the site - nice to know that.

BrianR

[fred]

HI

PR is by page

also you should have your affiliate "post" the data this way they will all point to the same page giving it all the backward links raising your page rank.

"posted" data is sent through forms they can send all the same data as querystring but they are not appended to the url.

[schecky]

You'll want to be a little careful using http_referrer. Not all browsers pass it, and of course no spider will pass it, so you want to make sure your tracking program can handle an empty value without going spastic.

I can understand no referrer from a bookmark or email link I don't see why a browser wouldn't include the referer in the request, provided there is one. Which browsers don't send the referrer in the request?

[SEOCub]

HI

PR is by page

also you should have your affiliate "post" the data this way they will all point to the same page giving it all the backward links raising your page rank.

"posted" data is sent through forms they can send all the same data as querystring but they are not appended to the url.

I asked this in another thread / forum ...spiders follow URLs in forms that post data? Where the post occurs to the URL specified in 'action'?
Anyone know the answer to this???