The Impact of Affiliate Links on Search Engine Rankings: Myths and Reality

There has been a hypothesis in the SEO community for many years that Google targets partner sites. This myth was especially relevant in the early 2000s, when web developers actively discussed it on forums. However, over time it became clear that Google does not really target affiliate sites, but rather focuses on the quality of sites that use certain tactics, such as keyword stuffing, organized link rings, large-scale automated content, etc.

“…will a lot of affiliate links hurt a page's ranking?”

🚀 Google's John Mueller responded: "We have a blog post about 10 years ago about this, and it's still relevant today. The short version is that having affiliate links on a page doesn't automatically make your pages useless or bad. Nor does it automatically make your pages useful. You have to make sure your pages can stand on their own, that they're actually useful and helpful in the context of the web and for your users."

• 📌 Affiliate links do not automatically degrade page ranking.
• 📌 The key is the usefulness and help that the page can provide to users.
• 📌 Pages must be able to "stand" on their own, regardless of the presence of affiliate links.