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Tom, You can use the Disavow Links tool to do this for existing links, though I would advise updating the way your affiliate program works so as to avoid the issue going forward. For example, when providing the link code to affiliates include the rel nofollow tag, as mentioned above. Most affiliate programs will send the user through an internal redirect, which can pass on the unique identifying parameter for the affiliate so they get credit for the conversions. I understand you may not want to go that route due to the work involved, but this is really the standard for affiliate programs these days. It allows you complete control on your end without having to bother the affiliates to update their links. Good luck!

Great thanks Tom, clearly a develpment i missed!

Thanks Branden, this is what i suspected then, and there is no way to set alternate URLs within same AdGroup/Ad based on device. Completley agree Respnsive design is the way to go, we have allready rebuilt a clients site like this for them and plan to do more, The mobile version of this site is not even on a sub domain or sub directory, its on a totally different domain which is less than ideal. They have recently hired a new head of online however who is working closley with us to turn this around so hopefully this shall improve soon! Thanks for the response.

I use Marin also.  You can setup sub MCCs for various access...Marin, Adobe, HubSpot, etc. I have run into a few issues doing this, as AdWords has limits on how many managers can be linked thru an MCC.  Or you can also create individual email accounts for each account, and grant Marin access to each account individually.

Rich, Because responsive design inherently only uses one html file, what you're describing isn't so simple. Obviously, you only want to include 1 GA tracking code, but you COULD include some logic that fires a different one on page load depending on detected screen width. I think your best bet is to just use the standard GA code in your HTML, then include some JS that detects which of the layouts are displayed on load, and sends it in a custom variable. Alternatively, GA, by default, will capture screen size as a data point, so, as long as your responsiveness is working properly, you can just create segments in GA based on those and view site behavior accordingly. Mike

Thank you both for your responses, it appears to validate my own thoughts. I will get onto our internal development team who have taken over control of the site to see if we can remedy this. @ Boss & Arrighi thank you for the additional information on the Rel Author implementation. We spent a lot of time thinking about the merits of the two but in the end we decided to go for the brand reinforcement. However some of our other brands will be using Rel Author once their blogs are up and running.

Canonicalization is a bit of an "it depends" answer in a lot of cases. If the domains are really identical and if you want to discontinue using the two duplicate domains, then 301-redirects are probably the best long-term bet. If you need to continue using the other two domains (as landing pages for other marketing campaigns or paid search, for example), then 301s aren't going to be viable, and cross-domain canonicals should be a decent choice. I'd also say that if you just have a small number of duplicates pages (not the entire sites), then canonical tags are a good bet. The only time I'd be cautious with 301s is if: (1) one of the domains has a bad history or questionable link profile, or (2) you're 301'ing a large number of domains - two domains is probably not an issue. In that cases, canonical tags may be a little safer (people aren't gaming them as much as 301s - yet - so Google isn't quite as suspicious).

Blocking the links in .htaccess won't work, as that's not how Google crawls. If you have the webmaster information, you could maybe send a cease and desist order. I'd also submit a reinclusion request and show them the domains that are redirecting to your site and show them that you do not own these sites. I would also show them the drop that has occurred because of it. Be totally transparent with the reinclusion team.

Yes, it seems like Google has penalized a bunch of sites with unnatural link profiles. Patrick Altoft has written a good post on it yesterday: http://www.branded3.com/seo/the-new-google-link-algorithm/ And both Alan and SEOclient12 are right: Do not send reconsideration request before cleaning up. Best of luck. Thomas