44 replies to this topic

[fred]

Hi

I guess you can create your own , it doesn't seem so hard to do

affiliate can link to you site with a param , you can us this param to know where the sales comes from and pay them accordingly. and they will link to your pages giving you the boost in backlink

[Jodi]

Hi Fred. While I appreciate what you're saying, they're a HUGE site. They need something a little more comprehensive than their own made-up urls.

They need something to track everything - and I know there are programs out there that do this. I'm just hoping that someone out there has had some experience with one or two of them and can make a suggestion.

All the best,

--Jodi

[fred]

Hey Jodi

I don't think that the size of the site is very relevant , they work in .net , it's fairly easy to do.

but you say

They need something to track everything

you know what they need and want more than I do.

No I don't know any software to do it , sorry.

[Jodi]

Hi Fred. My concern was that with so many different products, simply making up their own urls wouldn't be good enough to track everything. But they are already using .net - so maybe there's something that could be used within that to help them create their own affiliate program?

In any case, thanks for your help so far. I appreciate your taking the time to read the saga.

All the best,

--Jodi

[Steve Gill]

Hi again,

That affiliate "should" (technically speaking) beat out your site in the rankings even aside from my comment about the keyword stuffing. Their frequent use of the term 'rug' is used in context at least, and not just thrown in randomly or in hidden text someplace like various spoofy sites do.

But the real reason they've attained a higher ranking (imo) is because of all the PR directed from their other websites towards that affiliate site. At the bottom of all their numerous webpages they have a spot for "webpages of interest" or whatever, and 'rugs' is one of them.

So they *are* playing by the rules, but also using some 'grey' practices along the way. However I've utilized the inherent traits of the SEs to get my sites indexed faster and ranked higher too, so I'm not one to talk. But I wouldn't try to trick the SEs, even if I thought I could get away with it.

All's fair in love and war.. and SEO. The search engines create the algorithms - it's our job to learn how they work and use that knowledge to our benefit without breaking the rules.

Solutions..? If you want to go on a jihad to rank higher than your affiliates it would take a lot of work, but anything's possible.

If google puts more weight behind backlinks from related sites than nonrelated sites (as they claim, iirc) then although that affiliate has a heck of a lot of incoming links, most are not related to rugs (i.e. one I saw was from a site selling movie posters).

So if that's true, then you'd have to get as many incoming links from related websites as possible - anything to do with rugs especially (I doubt links from websites about Persia (i.e. historical) or Persian cats would be considered related... but then again, who knows <G>).

Grey method: find discussion groups/forums that deal with rugs or a theme as close to that as possible. Make some *worth while* posts in that forum - answering any questions people have asked if you can; don't just post an advertisement for no reason or ask a lame question (<G>) - and put that rugman url as your sig, preferably with keywords in it if they let you add the link with a 'link title'.

You may want to check to see if that forum is spidered by google first - many are - and if so, it'll help your ranking.

I have a web design company that use to rank about #12 or #13 in town a few months back. I made very few changes to the site since then, but HAVE posted maybe a dozen or so posts in unrelated forums with a sig consisting of my keywords and url since then. Now I rank #2 in town for my primary keywords as well as #1 for a whole bunch of other search terms (like 'Media MyTown'). I didn't make those forum posts to rank higher - and didn't think it'd matter much since they must have zero PR - but I can't think of anything else I've done since I was #13... and you needn't go nuts and make 500 posts or anything.. <G>... just a couple or half dozen sprinkled among a few different related forums.

Similarly, find someone with a blog and have a text link added in there somehow (dunno if you know anyone with a blog, but if so - try it).

Conjecture - Google recently added a thesaurus like feature to their search bar wherein you can use the "~" symbol to get similar meaning keywords searched for (sorry, I forget the details) and I *think* I read they'd recently bought out some company with a SE algorithm based on 'like terms' *. OH - and didn't Google *just* add 'like terms' to their AdWords advertisements...? Why yes, I believe they did. So they DO have a thesaurus like capability

* don't quote me on this... it could have been a dream I had <G>, but I'm pretty sure I read something along those lines.

Now, if this is all TRUE... then I'd be willing to bet google will add something to their algorithm where search rankings will not only be based on the keyword being looked for (in url, title, description, on page text, etc) but ALSO any 'like terms' found on the page (words similar to the keyword). i.e. in your case, look up 'rugs' in the thesaurus and it'd certainly show "carpets". So google might determine a page with the words 'rugs' and 'carpets' on it is going to be more 'on topic' than a page that just features the word 'rugs' with no other words related to that theme...

Note that my theory may be completely wrong.. it's just something that's occured to me since I've seen Google add two or three 'thesaurus-like' capabilities/features to their workings in the past few months.

But if I'm *right*... then I've just given away an incredibly hot SE tip and you read it here first.

So, long story short:

- get incoming links from websites related to rugs

- get any other inbound links you can get too (whether related to rugs or not, but use 'persian rugs' as the link title) - any other sites they own or sites you maintain that can get away with what that affiliate site did ('websites of interest' links).

- ensure every internal page to that site has a link to the home page, and use keywords in the link (i.e. 'persian rugs home page'

- make a few posts in forums related to rugs and include the url (with keywords in the title tag if that's a feature to that forum)

-get a link in a blog somewhere if possible

- for future possible rankings improvements, ensure you have some words similar to 'rugs' on your page(s). Look those two words up in the thesaurus (or www.thesaurus.com ) and sprinkle the results on your pages.

Hope that helps.. and sorry for the long windedness (is that a word?).

- Steve Gill

[Jodi]

Hi Steve. All very good ideas - and the linking, I've already been working on.

As mentioned before, I think they should start their own affiliate program and cut out using the quickserve Commission Junction links. Then THEY will get all the benefit of this work their affiliates have done.

Don't get me wrong - I don't intend to go on the warpath to oust their affiliates! Not at all. Those affiliates have obviously got quite a system working, even if they're using some grey areas of SEO.

I'm just saying that the page they're *linking* to, should get some of the benefits of that, don't you think?

Rugman's site *does* contain many instances of "carpets", "area rugs", and other related terms, so I'm not at all worried about that.

My original concern was that one day they were #8 and the next day they were completely gone. And I was not *using* any grey areas of SEO for them, so I can only assume that Google was somehow unable to index their site. They were #8 for "persian rugs" before, whether or not they had a page rank of 0. It didn't seem to matter then. Not that they would be #1 or anything if the other Page Ranks are hugely above theirs, but they shouldn't have disappeared quite as completely as they *did*. THAT is what worried me.

I can only assume that their site was down or something when Google came by to index because it was mentioned that they aren't forcing session IDs or cookies on anyone and I honestly can't think of any other reason why their site would be unindexable.

Anyway, this is all speculation. I think I'll need to work on their paid inclusion into Lycos and Inktomi, and see what happens with the engines in the near future.

And as was pointed out, it's a very good thing these affiliates are on their side! I have no intention of stirring the hornets nest.

--Jodi

[fred]

Hi jodi

i don't know how familiar you are with programming but

My concern was that with so many different products, simply making up their own urls wouldn't be good enough to track everything

you don't need to create a new url by products, the links to your urls needs to add a parameter so if your link is

.../rug/persians.aspx

then your 'goon' affiliate will link to .../rug/persians.aspx?affiliate=goon

then you can know who referred the sale to you.

if you need to manage other info then you can add some parameters

oups the engine might see those as different url and not helping with your backward link.

plan B :

your affiliate should "Post" the data to your page, the link will always be .../rug/persians.aspx
but in the request you could collect the info that you need.
"Posted" data comes from forms , the affiliate will create a form that links to you site.

talk to the programmers they will know what i'm talking about.

is pretty simple

and in .net they can simply create an object that will deal with all this , then simply include this object in every page

You don't need to change any of your url

[Jodi]

Hi Fred. Not being a programmer, most of what you just said was gobbledegook to me. But I'll definitely keep it in mind if I can convince them to start their own affiliate program. I'm sure their own IT folks would know what you were talking about.

I think it's gathering the data into one page of stats - once affiliate sales had been tabulated - that would concern me most. Obviously, we want to be able to properly track and pay these people.

--Jodi

[Steve Gill]

Dunno if you noticed this already, but when I type the rugman url into google it shows this:

www.qksrv.net/click-1271844-9495027

Isn't that qksrv domain related to consumption junction?

Maybe your site *was* down when google spidered, or maybe their bot went nuts somehow. It might be worth sending an email to google asking them to correct this, if you don't want to wait for the next spidering (whenever that is..and it may not fix the problem even then, depending on the cause).

At least you have rugman well covered in the Adwords...

Just fyi.

- Steve Gill

[fred]

Hi Jody

thanks for the idea I think that when I have the time I will work on building such an application

when I have the time

don't worry their IT guys will know what you are talking about even if you don't.
by the way the site is very nice.

[SEOCub]

your affiliate should "Post" the data to your page, the link will always be .../rug/persians.aspx

I thought spiders did not follow forms. If the form posts to the URL then the link is in the 'action' - if spiders don't follow this link then how will this be of any use?

[Sharon & Roy]

Guys, I'm really stumped on this one and I'm hoping to get some different perspectives on things to know how to handle it from here.

Hi Jodi,

The following research may or may not be useful for you, but we are HOPING that it will be!

Please understand that while we do want to help you with your situation, on this one we will need to be vague, so as to not give away the farm.

If you can SEE and FOLLOW the "logic" in the results below, then you can pinpoint the "PROBLEM" you are having with the main site's pages being outranked by their affiliate's pages.

Jodi, we hope this information will be helpful and point you in the right direction to continue your research and analysis, but if not then we apologize for only being able to reveal such a limited amount of information in a free public forum.

So their results have dropped off the map because their affiliate link seems to have more "relevance" than their main site?? Huh?

I have been doing SEO for a LONG time and this is the first time I've ever come across anything like this (maybe I'm not working with clients in the right industry for it, huh)? Do any of you have any advice? Is there anything that can be done about this?

Your suggestions would be greatly appreciated. We worked very hard over several months and were just starting to see awesome results. I'd hate for them to just disappear.

Jodi, you may want to click the following link and read all of our posts in the thread to further help you with your "PROBLEM" as you can clearly see that we always advise our clients and students to not fall for the misconception that some SEOs believe in and therefore many who follow their advice have mistakenly accepted that "Content is King" when it is clearly NOT. This in turn will then lead to questions such as yours.

"CONTENT" is NOT King when it comes to acquiring high rankings, but "LINK REPUTATION" is!

We must disagree with those who say that "Content Is King" and say that "Link Reputation Is King."


Oh, and by the way Jodi, are the RugMan.com folks using StoreFront 6.0, do you know?


.............................
allintitle:
http://www.google.co.....rugs"&num=100
Results 1 - 100 of about 6,530

::: Affiliate Page is ranked #19 :::
Luxurious Oriental and Persian Rugs at or Below Wholesale Prices ...
... Featured Merchant: Hand-woven tribal Persian rugs. Up ... Luxurious, Affordable,
& Risk-Free Oriental & Persian Rugs at Rugman.com. Rugman ...
www.killerplants.com/shopping/rugman.asp - 64k - Cached - Similar pages

::: Affiliate Page is ranked #42 :::
Rugman - Discount Oriental and Persian rugs store
Online Stores Review Rugman - Discount Oriental and Persian rugs store.
RISK-FREE, HASSLE-FREE shopping at Rugman.com Because Rugman ...
storesreview.com/Rugman.htm - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

::: No RugMan.com page is ranked in the Top 100 :::
.............................


.............................
SEO TIP: Further analysis for ...

www.killerplants.com/shopping/rugman.asp

... Reveals the following ...

Bazaar shopping:
Bazaar shopping links
A&E/History Channel
eCAMPUS Books
National Geographic
Outdoor Decor
Rugman Persian rugs
Sea Eagle Inflatable Boats
The Palm Store

... Located here ...

www.killerplants.com/

http://www.google.co...ping/rugman.asp
.............................




.............................
allinurl:
http://www.google.co.....rugs"&num=100
Results 1 - 100 of about 412

::: Affiliate Page is ranked #76 :::
Buy Persian Area Rugs Online
... Persian Area Rugs. For hand made persian rugs that you can
shop for and buy online, please visit RugMan.com today. ...
www.area-rugs-123.com/persian.html - 4k - Cached - Similar pages

::: No RugMan.com page is ranked in the Top 100 :::
.............................


Your Friends,

Sharon and Roy Montero

[webstream]

Hi Jodi,

(they had a huge bit of .NET garbage at the top and when they got rid of it, their listings skyrocketted!),

So you are saying by removing the ASP.NET meta tags the web site rankings improved dramatically?

   <meta name="GENERATOR" Content="Microsoft Visual Studio 7.0">
    <meta name="CODE_LANGUAGE" Content="C#">
    <meta name=vs_defaultClientScript content="JavaScript">
    <meta name=vs_targetSchema content="http://schemas.microsoft.com/intellisense/ie5">

You were referring to these kinds of meta tags right?

ASP.NET also keeps track of all the postback data in the hidden input tag near the top of the page, call "__VIEWSTATE", which can be huge depending on the page. If you look at the source code for Rugman's Collector's Gallery you will see the huge amount of encrypted data. I have often wondered if this would effect ranking a site. Would this have any effect on spidering the page?

I ask that because I am designing several ASP.NET sites right now, one is for rugs! Not Persian tho.

the main site's pages being outranked by their affiliate's pages

So you guys are saying that links from other web sites could possibly lower your ranking, as well as improve it?

Webstream

[webstream]

Jodi,

BTW, one of the things that I try to watch for is how Microsoft ASP.NET handles other browsers. Even though they only represent a small percentage of today's viewers I still feel the other modern browsers should be able to view the sites I design, as examples: NS 7.1 or Mozilla 1.4.

Anyway, when I checked rugman.com with NS 7.1 and Mozilla 1.4 I got bounced out to: "Content/Compatibility.aspx" page, which would not allow me to view the web site. The page does say you need IE 5.0 or NS 6.0 later. Well NS 7.1 is later.

You might want someone to look into that.

Webstream

[Jill]

Oooo....that doesn't sound good. The spiders are usually less functional than NS 7.1!

Jill