Sitewide links from affiliates. Good or bad?

[imoney]

We have 14 affiliate sites that have a sitewide banner linked to one of our pages. The banner link is "follow" and contains an alt text that includes a brand name and a keyword. Are these links harming us, or creating value?

We were hit by Panda 2.0 - do you think it might be the reason?

[Jantaro]

Since these are affiliate links, I believe they should be marked as nofollow, otherwise they might be considered paid links and penalized. However, if the links are through one of the major affiliate networks, then I believe Google is already aware that they are affiliate links and won't pass the link juice. I'd consider it unlikely that you're being penalized if the links are through a big affiliate network (for example CJ or Linkshare).

[Aggie]

Agree with Jan.  These are, in essence, paid links and Google has been very vocal about the fact that paid links should not pass page rank.

If these are banner ads with a campaign tag, Google may be aware that they are ads.  To be safe, why not ensure that links from affiliates are 'nofollow'.

Lisa

[Everett]

Other members have given good advice on nofollowing those links. I just wanted to answer your other question: It would be more likely that the Penguin algorithm update would affect you in regard to this specific issue. If you truly were affected by Panda it probably has something to do with the quality of your site, specifically the content, as opposed to off-site factors like followable affiliate links.