Affiliates ranking higher

[Archers]

This post is deleted!

[EGOL]

Contrary to what authors want to see and what Google says, the Google algos are not very good at ranking the content owner's website first in the search results.   Instead, optimization and strength usually win.

Like you, I really dislike that.

Lots of affiliates are really good at optimization and they often have strong websites.  They also like to use the text of the affiliate program's website instead of writing their own.  The more affiliates republish your content the more likely you are to rank poorly.

So, you can either live with this and enjoy the sales that the affiliates produce or you can be a hardass and refuse to pay any affiliate who uses your content.   If you do that a lot of affiliates will start promoting your competitor's products.

If you tell affiliates that they must rel=canonical their pages to your website then their pages will not rank in the SERPs.  Many of them will quit your program the moment you demand that.

When you recruit affiliates you can get really smart people to go up against your competitors... but at the same time there will be some damage done to your own direct sales.  It boils down to this....   When you hire mercenaries, they are going to run the battle on their terms or cross over to your competitor.  You will be hit with some friendly fire.