Comments on: What is a Thin Affiliate Site?

By: David

David — Mon, 16 May 2011 20:16:15 +0000

Damn!! I cant belive i came across this. My sites where doing well in google but they have since droped to the last page. I think i fall under that category.
I need more info on how to get out of that ban..because i cant give up on my sites!

Thanks for the post.

By: Tony

Tony — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 02:14:41 +0000

Great post. I’ve had one of my sites recently hit with the -950 penalty and it’s a bummer because it really is an innovative site, but just so happens to look like a thin affiliate. I’ve been running tests to see if I can get out of the hole, but looks like I’m just going to have to keep improving my site and wait.

By: Amazon Stores or Amazon Review Blogs?

Amazon Stores or Amazon Review Blogs? — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:09:30 +0000

[...] Rates I have explored in depth the Thin Affiliate Penalty issued by Google to some affiliate websites. In a nutshell – this is a permanent penalty that [...]

By: staglo

staglo — Fri, 25 Mar 2011 10:52:00 +0000

I had a site running using autoblogged methods, I just took it down and added some few pages I created .

Although the sites still gets about at least 50% off traffic from Google, I was just not happy with the content layout which make site really confusing for visitors to you site, you get a quick bounce rate now that I have removed all old contents and started afresh, with few advertisements but the side

Now the average page viewing time is 2 mins, which is better than 12secs
There is absolutely nothing wrong in just having pages of 5 unique an starting afresh and resubmitting your site, it just shows that you are ready to prove to Google and your visitors that earning extra money is good but you are all up for providing good content value

By: Tim_Myth

Tim_Myth — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 15:21:16 +0000

“…If you were to review your site without bias, would you consider it useful?”

Best advice EVER! Google plainly says in their guidelines to make useful webites for visitors. They want you to put the visitor first. This is the first rule of ANY business: Put the customer first. Don’t build websites designed for spiders (eg, junk nonsensical sites stuffed with keywords). Don’t build them for primarily for monetary gain (eg, a site full of ads and affiliate links). Build a website with useful information that someone visiting your site will find value in. On the other hand, that doesn’t mean to ignore spiders or ignore monetizing your sites. Quite the contrary, without a financial incentive (ie, monetization), you’ll have little reason to continue building your site. Target wouldn’t have as many stores as they do if they made no money or were a non-profit. And without SEO (ie, optimizing for search engine spiders), Google will not be able to find your useful content to display to searchers. Just imagine how useful Wal-Mart would be if the isles were tough to navigate and products were randomly distributed around the store. So while ads, affiliate links, and SEO are extremely imporant aspects of operating a website, your number one most important factor to consider is the people visiting your site.

By: sika

sika — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 07:37:22 +0000

thanks for sharing this.
I’m a newbie as well – I have a site up for arround a half a year – no issues and a few good rankings.
But now all of a sudden all rankings fall – people told me due to thin affiliate – maybe right my content is just building up slowly…
anyway should I contiue to invest in the site and hope that google will except it soon again or do I need to start with a new domain?

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 20:35:13 +0000

Hi, thanks for providing this post. I need your guide badly. Im a newbie in affiliate marketing. I bought a domain name and got it registered as well. The site has no content for the past 2 months. I have engaged a web developer to help while i provide the content to be put there. Will google penalize me for it being empty? Please help

By: Gabe

Gabe — Thu, 02 Dec 2010 22:27:09 +0000

Damn, I have about 6 sites that have been jumping up to the top 5+ spots on google for a couple/few days and then down to page 5+ for a week at a time. Now that I’ve read this post I guess mine are thin affiliate sites. I can’t give up on them though, I’m going to post some more content and backlinks to see what happens slowly over the next few weeks.

Now that I think about it, my one successful site that is built the same way/template as the other 6 and it’s #1 in google for the main keywords, but when I started the successful site I only posted content blog posts for a few weeks WITHOUT any amazon products…which is the opposite of the other 6 sites that are getting their balls chopped off by google.

Thanks, I think I figured out how to start my next site…without any products and only some quality blog posts.

By: Girisoft

Girisoft — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 21:22:16 +0000

Oh thanks friend. Even i have a site which only dedicated for amazon affiliate program. I think i should add some content as you suggested. Thanks again

By: Amazon Affiliate Stores with Fresh Store Builder

Amazon Affiliate Stores with Fresh Store Builder — Thu, 25 Nov 2010 13:38:45 +0000

[...] large chunk of my stores got penalised by what is now identified as the Thin Affiliate Filter. Essentially this is a Google penalty which reduces your rankings so you got zero traffic. Why does [...]