What is an affiliate link?An affiliate link is a link in a promo (ad) affiliate system pointing to a merchant web page. An affiliate visitor normally get attracted with the promo (ad) on the affiliate website or email or in any other clickable media and click the affiliate link to go to the merchant web site. The visitors coming to the merchant website through this route is recorded by the affiliate software and if later when he buys a product from the website the referring affiliate gets commission. A promo or ad can contain one or many affiliate links. What are different types of affiliate links? Which one is SEO Friendliest?Any promo must contain one of the following four types of affiliate links: Standard links (redirected and with tracking string) URL rewritten but redirected (also known as SEO links) Direct-n-Deep links (direct but with tracking string) Quick links (deep links with limited tracking parameter) Natural links (direct and no tracking string)
Standard Affiliate Links
Standard affiliate links are basically a redirected link, delivering the customer to sales pages via a tracking page, which is an indication of a paid link, and a tracking string embedded at the end to identify the affiliate marketer. These links commonly look like this: href="http_www_merchantsite_com/affiliates/tracking.php?aid=100_200" Problems with this kind of link arise out of the obviousness to humans and Search Engine bots that it is an affiliate links. Search engines frown on this kind of link and may penalize the referrer website with a poor SEO score. This link is commonly used by low-yield affiliates who are either new to affiliate marketing and don't know any better or website owners who care little about SEO scores. Cross domain links only exacerbate the issue. Affiliate clearinghouses like ClickBank will offer these links to anyone who signs up for their services, regardless of the links ability to perform or the sanctions that may be met for using them.
URL Rewritten Links
Also commonly referred to as "SEO Links", they are nothing but URL rewritten links moving the tracking IDs into the page name. Below is an example of the difference between a standard link (top) and an URL rewritten link (bottom). href="http_www_merchantsite_com/affiliates/tracking-page.php?aid=1-2" href="http_www_merchantsite_com/affiliates/1-2.html" Please note, the final destination page is a different page in both case. The only difference is the very end of the URL. Although a bit more SEO friendly than a standard link, they are still redirected in nature and the website owner may be penalized or hardly get any SEO benefit for using them.
Direct-n-Deep Links
Affiliate professional who know their way around the Internet will commonly use this kind of link because it is not an SEO un-friendly redirected link. Direct-n-Deep affiliate links are better than SEO links from an SEO standpoint. They are also more readily accepted by affiliates because they are direct links. href="http_www_merchantsite_com/productA.php?aid=1-2" Notice that the affiliate redirect is gone but the string remains at the end. This is often an affiliates and merchants favored link because it does not redirect from a tracking site.
Natural Links
According to affiliate marketers, the natural link is the most powerful kind of affiliate link to be hoped for. It is 100% SEO sage and friendly because it does not redirect from a tracking site and it does not have a tracking string at the end of the link URL. It is impossible for search engine spiders to detect the natural link as being a paid link altogether. So it is SEO safest both to affiliates and merchants. href="http_www_merchantsite_com/productA.php" There is, however, one little glitch to using the natural link. The link must be published in a website (an email link will not work) and the website ownership must be a verified before linking. However, the domain verification process is quite easy and can be done from both merchant and affiliate end. Once a domain is verified, the affiliate can link to any page without adding the tracking string.
Quick-n-Any-Page Linking Mechanism
An affiliate enjoys full freedom here. There is no need to login to the affiliate panel to create an affiliate link; he only has to remember his affiliateID. He can then link to any merchant page by adding "?aid=his_affiliateID" or "&aid=his_affiliateID" at the end of the URL. See an example below: href="http_www_merchantsite_com/any-merchnat-page.php?aid=his_affiliateID" It can be applied to any text-link or image-link or any file-link. Standard links is the least SEO friendly, and natural links are most SEO friendly. It is interesting to note that so-called SEO links are not that much more SEO friendly. Here is a graphical representation of the same.
Big shot affiliates may deny placing redirected links (1& 2) lest they lose credibility to Google. What is a "promo" or an "ad"?A "promo" or an "ad', in an affiliate system, is an online advertisement unit published on an affiliate web page, an email, or in any offline document. It must contain a link or some links pointing to the merchant website. Promos or ads are also known as "marketing materials", "promotional links", "marketing creatives" or simply "links". What is the role of a promo in an affiliate system?To understand the role of promos in an affiliate system we must review how an affiliate system works. Merchant sets up promos containing clickable link(s) in the affiliate's system. Affiliate chooses some promos and publishes them on his website page(s). Affiliate site visitors, while visiting affiliate site, eventually click on the promo link and go to merchant site. Some visitors buy directly from merchant site and the affiliate gets his commission.
In an affiliate system, it is the promo that does all the work to attract and fetch visitors (future customers) to the merchant site. Is promo and affiliate link synonymous?No, they are not, although sometimes they are used synonymously. A promo or ad must contain at least one link (< a href="LinkURL" > Promo Text or image URL </a>) pointing to the merchant website. It may contain multiple links also. Say the HTML ads or custom promos contain multiple links. However, text links, banners, and light boxes usually contain only one link. What are standard types of promos/ads?Euraffiliates provides a standard set of promos. These include: Text links - these are simple anchor texts with catchy captions pointing towards a specific merchant sales page Image Links -- these are simple image links with an attractive look and caption pointing to a specific merchant sales page GIF Banners -- these are similar to image links but they are animated GIF images Flash Banners -- these are like banners but the source file is a flash file and not an image file Light Boxes - these are a combination of small and large images. When the small image is clicked upon, the enlarged image is opened in an attractive light box style Static Text/HTML content - these are basically static Text or HTML content with one or more links pointing to different sales pages on the merchant website Page Peels - these are also a combination of small and large images but are typically placed at the top corner of a web page and opened in an attractive unique style. HTML Ads - Simple HTML content mainly to be used in affiliate newsletters or in social network websites or on a temporary webpage. Content Widget is better alternative to be published in affiliate website.
Advanced Tools
Rotating Ads - This is to some extent like Google Ad sense; affiliates just choose dimension and display preferences, save their preferences, copy a few lines of codes and paste it in their website to show different ads at different point of time.
Quick Links - Affiliates does not need to copy anything from the system to link to any of the merchant web pages. Only thing he needs to remember his AffiliateID and add it at the end of the desired Merchant Page URL. Should the affiliate add his domain as verified natural linking domain, he does not need to add the trailing affiliateID too. This is extremely useful when an affiliate links from an article or blog content.
What is a custom promo or widget?Apart from the standard set of promos, some affiliate software supports custom promos or widgets. Normally custom promos or widgets are more powerful as they are developed to solve a particular custom merchant requirement. However, custom promos always need custom programming and you must have a separate budget for these. Which type of promos bring more affiliate sales and why?To make your affiliates happy you must have the capability of setting up all type of required promos. Different affiliates like different types of promos. Affiliates with less Internet experience are always drawn to attractive, bright promos and so they prefer banners, light boxes, page peels, images, etc. Mature affiliates with a fair amount of traffic to their sites may like bright promos but never bother to publish those in their sites. There are three valid reasons for it. They do not want to kill their own brand image by placing a banner of another site that may suppress original content. Attractive promos are always less SEO friendly than text links A large promo stops them from placing other promos from different merchants on their site page, which would result in a reduction of potential revenue.
Promising affiliates may be attracted to quick linking mechanisms to create quick text links. Because they have got absolute freedom in linking and can easily place a relevant link from a article or blog. However, when deciding which promo to select, the conversion rate and the type of links used must play an important role in the decision making. Once affiliates become more experienced, they are likely to prefer natural links or at least direct deep links. Custom widgets and data-feeds can play a big role in multiplying affiliate sales if you have the capacity to develop them in accordance with the requirements of your mega affiliates. Although the visually attractive promos such as banners, light boxes, page peels, look good in the affiliate area, you should not be surprised if they end up accounting for less than 5% of your total affiliate sales. Are popular affiliate software products powered with advanced linking tools?No. Most affiliate software products provide deep or natural linking options. The same is true for the Promos (Ads). However Euraffiliates Affiliate Software is powered with all types of advance linking tools including affiliate defined & custom widgets. | 
