Panda and affiliate networks

[NeilPark]

Last year we were hit with a Panda penalty and have been unable to recover from this.  We removed all duplicate content from our site and SEOMoz confirms this.

I have spoken to a new SEO company and they have identified that the cause maybe our content being duplicated off site by affiliates who are using our product feed such as Shopwiki and Thefind.

Is this a possibibilty and if so I presume the easiest thing to do is stop these affiliates using our descriptions.

Neil

[Brian-H]

It's odd that you were not seen as the original source of the content. Affiliates can bring you good business. Could you have a second copy of the product description for your affiliate feed members?

[NeilPark]

Thats an awful lot of work as our catalogue is over 4000 items and to be honest they are not contributing as much as they have in the past.

Is there some clever code to force Google to show we are the primary source?

[Brian-H]

Not that I am aware of. If you publish the product first and let google find it on your site first before adding it to the feed google should know you are the primary source.

If when the affiliate link is a link to your site this also should help you.

Take a snippet of your description place it in inverted commas and google it. Do you come up first? You should.

You could remove all descriptions from your feeds or maybe have your programmer only place the first paragraph in the feed or a shortened version or (I don't know if this will work) add available to buy at XYZ online in your description feed.To remove it completely makes it hard for the affiliate to sell your product.

Pm me a webpage that you think has been affected.

[Alex-Harford]

Do you have canonical tags? Is it possible to add a cross-site canonical to any of the affiliate pages? At the very least they should link directly back to the relevant product page on your own site.

[Brian-H]

You might find they are linking through a 3rd party feed supplier such as awin.

If I owned an affiliate site I don't think I'd want rel-canonical tags in my page.

[NeilPark]

As the affiliates are through networks they have affiliate tracking code so there is no link building benefit to us.

Our URL is www.gear-zone.co.uk and you can see if you google this text we do not appear first

"Get a grip when the weather does its worst with these excellent snow and ice grips.

Each sole is equipped with 13 self-tapping, replaceable carbon steel screw spikes, providing superb traction in the ice and snow."

It relates to this page so as you can see there is definatly a problem

[Brian-H]

Have you 100% written that text yourself or is it from the manufacturer?

"Insulated winter warmth comes courtesy of plump, 550 fill European premium quality down, in a fully seam sealed HyVent shell which will keep out the rain."

came up as you on top so it is not the whole site.

[NeilPark]

All the content is written by us.  The reason I chose that item is that it is basically an own brand item.  Heres another example

"Two-layer Gore-Tex uppers and Ballistics cloth bottoms make these Black Diamond Front Point Gaiters ideal for glacial travel and ice climbing.

The Front Point Gaiters provide warmth and waterproofing, and are tough as nails in repelling crampon spikes. Secured underfoot with a burly strap, these gaiters are easy to put on or remove using a velcro closure system and shock cord."

As you can see all the sites listed are affiliate shopping sites.

[TheUniqueSEO]

Hello

Did you get any further with this? We are in a similar position with shop wiki and would love to know how you got on with this issue.

Thanks

[NeilPark]

Hi,

I ended the affiliate programmes with Shopwiki, Digidrop and one or two other similar affiliates.  We saw a quick and small bounce back of some product related terms but it has take a while for the affiliates to remove our data so their listings are still dropping our of google.  It seems that for some reason the affiliates are being credited with being the owners of the content and therefore listing higher than us.

Do you think this is because the feeds are uploading every night and Shopwiki etc are being spidered quicker than our site.  One solution may be a weeks delay in new products being put onto our affiliate feeds.

Here is an example of where the affiliates are all listing above the link for http://www.gear-zone.co.uk

https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=When+the+temperatures+drop+and+winter+training+calls+for+a+snug+hoodie%2C+you+need+look+no+further+than+this+365+Warm+2nd+Layer+from+Adidas%2C+designed+for+cold-weather+comfort&oq=When+the+temperatures+drop+and+winter+training+calls+for+a+snug+hoodie%2C+you+need+look+no+further+than+this+365+Warm+2nd+Layer+from+Adidas%2C+designed+for+cold-weather+comfort&aqs=chrome.0.57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Please let me know what you think and how you are getting on with the issues you are experiencing.