Aff. Links On Google?

[RounderStaked]

I was searching to see were my site ranked on a keyphrase on google and one of the results on the top page came up as this:
www. cdpoker.com/cgi-bin/redir.cgi?id=xxxxxxxx=xxxxxxxx=xx
(edited affiliate area of link)

I have seen this in results many times before, but how in the world did this link manage to get on the top page of results on google??

[AceHigh Pino]

Google just recently announced that they were going forward with removing all gambling related advertisements on their site. I can only assume that this is a part of that? Someone has a link I'm sure...cuz I can't remember for the life of me where I read this story the other day.

[chiefofficer]

Originally Posted by AceHigh Pino

Google just recently announced that they were going forward with removing all gambling related advertisements on their site. I can only assume that this is a part of that? Someone has a link I'm sure...cuz I can't remember for the life of me where I read this story the other day.

I believe the google story said something about pop-up ads, not "all gambling ads".

I don't think google will start censoring the organic search results. The DOJ asked them to stop taken gambling ads year ago, so they did, but they didn't not allow people to even search for it.

"All gambling ads" is not what the article I read said.

[chiefofficer]

one more clarification.....

I believe the term "ad" is being confused here. An "ad" to google is something they are paid for. Like the sponsored ads at the top. Google stopped allowing those "ads" a long time ago.

Search results on google are not "ads". Saying google is not accepting gambling ads doesn't mean they won't allow gambling "search results".

[AceHigh Pino]

Yes very true....I apologize for the confusion in my own reply :-)

[SunPoker.com]

Originally Posted by RounderStaked

I was searching to see were my site ranked on a keyphrase on google and one of the results on the top page came up as this:
www. cdpoker.com/cgi-bin/redir.cgi?id=xxxxxxxx=xxxxxxxx=xx
(edited affiliate area of link)

I have seen this in results many times before, but how in the world did this link manage to get on the top page of results on google??

I have seen this before as well, where an affiliate link ranks high in the search engines. How is this possible? I'm sure it's some Black Hat technique or something or I could be entirely incorrect.

Anyone?

Mark

[PokerProp]

I have no idea how it happens. When Poker4ever was just launching and doing that push with all sorts of crazy freerolls and overlay tournaments and things I put up a page to promote it. Next thing I knew a search on Poker4ever was showing my affiliate link as the #1 site on google above poker4ever.com. They were actually #3 I think pokernews was #2 and my affiliate link #1. I don't know how that happened, but I sure wish I could figure out how to do it again lol.
Lasted for a few weeks and I got around 60 sign ups from it. To bad it wasn't a better site, I don't make much if anything from that now.

[ClarkePromotions]

It's all Black Hat SEO - been there done that and it's a huge pain in the butt! Every day Google gets smarter and Black Hat gets tougher, and consequently it's been my honest experience that White Hat is the way to go, now more than ever! You can spend months learning Black Hat techniques and they only give results for a really short time before Google figures it out (or some other Black Hatter beats you at your own game).

It's been said on here a million times, but I'll repeat it - build a website with TONS OF CONTENT and get some incoming links via link exchanges and you'll be getting Google hits in no time.

[J S]

I don't know for sure if it is 100% blackhat... we've had our affiliate code ranking top 3 for some very competitive keywords for a few weeks w/o any blackhat techniques (not that i know of anyway, no spam or wht not). This was on yahoo, not google btw.

I believe this means that the search engine rankings are giving more weight to your affiliate link than the direct link to the poker site for related keywords.

It certainly coud be blackhat, but it is not certainly blackhat.

I also concur w/ Clarke that a site that is well optimized w/ tons of content is the way to go.

[Jeremy]

Hmmmm....... I am on the fence on this one. I suppose it could be black hat depending on exactly how you are doing it.

But let's say I have a network of 100 poker sites all on different I.P. blocks and servers. Let's say on each of these sites I link to a poker room with my aff. link (as I am supposed too) from review pages that consequently have decent P.R. In these links I use the same anchor text or at least similar terms for my aff. links to the rooms.

It is easy to see how an affiliate url could rank high in the SERPS given this situation. I'm not sure you could call this black hat or that it is even wrong. I suppose it would just be a benefit of having so many sites and the fortitude to SEO your affiliate link as well as the pages themselves.