Need some advice - Affiliates

[dazfree]

Hi Guys,

I use to use these forums quite a bit a few months ago. Totally forgot what my u/name and password is and think I registered with an old email account so had to set up a new account.

I´ve got a few questions on affiliate schemes.

I have a web site about designer clothing which is in the top 10 of Google for most of the keywords.

The site is built on OScommerce and I am considering using a product feed from one of the major designer clothing online stores as an affiliate.

A few questions in regards to becoming an affiliate:

1. Can my oscommerce site handle the product feed and sort the products into the correct manufacturers? As I am page 1 in Google for a lot of manufacturer search terms I do not want to change the manufacturer urls. Will I need to modify my Oscommerce site to handle the feed?

2. What is Google´s view of affiliate sites? I have heard people say that my site will fall in the rankings if it becomes an affiliate site. Is this true? Basically I want to make sure becoming an affiliate does not destroy the good work I have done getting onto page 1 for a number of search terms.

3. Can I hand pick the products? For example for each manufacturer the product feed may have 300 products whilst I just want to show 30 products for each manufacturer, can I hand pick the products I want to show?

4. Just confirmation that I can still edit the site (add articles, blog posts, change logos etc...) if it is an affiliate site?

Cheers in advance for the help guys.

Darrell

[Subbynet]

Hi Darrell,


A few questions in regards to becoming an affiliate:

1. Can my oscommerce site handle the product feed and sort the products into the correct manufacturers? As I am page 1 in Google for a lot of manufacturer search terms I do not want to change the manufacturer urls. Will I need to modify my Oscommerce site to handle the feed?

It would be best to automate the system as product feeds can be updated daily. osCommerce to my knowledge cannot handle this functionality byt default and it would require a programmer to code this for you.

2. What is Google´s view of affiliate sites? I have heard people say that my site will fall in the rankings if it becomes an affiliate site. Is this true? Basically I want to make sure becoming an affiliate does not destroy the good work I have done getting onto page 1 for a number of search terms.

Google's view is a closely guarded secret, but in general Affiliate Sites are not a problem, but you must provide decent content. A site full of affiliate links won't do much.

3. Can I hand pick the products? For example for each manufacturer the product feed may have 300 products whilst I just want to show 30 products for each manufacturer, can I hand pick the products I want to show?

It would take some manipulation of the feed, but at the very least, yes you could just remove the details of any products you don't wish to be displayed.

4. Just confirmation that I can still edit the site (add articles, blog posts, change logos etc...) if it is an affiliate site?

Yep, more or less anything you like can be done, at least within the T&C's of the affiliate agreement.

[dazfree]

Cheers Martin,

Does anyone know if the programming for the feed is a big job?

Has anyone got any examples of sites in the top 10 of Google which are affiliates?

Anymore information on this subject would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Darrell

[Subbynet]

Cheers Martin,

Does anyone know if the programming for the feed is a big job?

Does it have to be osCommerce? Do you sell actual products already? Because if you can change systems, other software exists which does make the job somewhat easier.


Has anyone got any examples of sites in the top 10 of Google which are affiliates?

That would be hard... But I know people who spend hundreds of thousands each month in Adwords etc...

If I was to guess a few sites... I'd say, MoneySavingExpert.com, MoneySupermarket.com , CompareTheMarket.com rank pretty high up the scale.


Anymore information on this subject would be appreciated.

This forum is a gold mine of information - http://www.affiliates4u.com

Hope it helps.

[dazfree]

Oscommerce is the site which ranks in the google top 10 for a host of terms at the moment, so it will be this site.

[Subbynet]

Are you sure? Where did you get that information?

I personally don't see how oscommerce is going to help you.. Even if that term was popular, no one entering "oscommerce" is looking to buy a "digital camera" for example.

You can't just pick the most popular terms and think that works for every product.

[Spiderden]

Oscommerce is the site which ranks in the google top 10 for a host of terms at the moment, so it will be this site.

That's a good reason to not use OSC. If you want to beat them, you have to be different. Besides, OSC's SEO sucks, there are much better carts out their for SEO than OSC.

[dazfree]

ha ha no I mean the site that ranks for designer clothing related terms (armani jeans, hugo boss shirts etc..) is an OScommerce site.

i know quite a bit how to get sites ranking in google however i dont know anything about affiliates.

I think if you have the right modules for OSC it can be very good for SEO.