Are Commission Junction's affiliate links bad for SEO and Google PageRank?

I don't think that Google is specifically out to penalize websites that include affiliate links. There are many websites and blogs that use affiliate marketing as a source of revenue, and maintain good rankings in Google search.

However, many webmasters have reported decreases in traffic after including affiliate links from CJ (Commission Junction and LinkShare). There are a few reasons that this may be the case:

• Too many outbound links on the page may lower PageRank
• Not using rel="nofollow" on affiliate links
• CJ and LinkShare use redirects, which Google finds suspicious
• Not enough content relative to the number of outgoing links

What Google doesn't like are thin affiliate pages - pages that provide little value and whose sole purpose is to generate revenue by funneling visitors to other sites via paid links.

Google also doesn't like links that redirect all over the show. Unfortunately, CJ and LinkShare use redirects, and this may affect a page's rank if you have too many outgoing links that redirect.

Many affiliate marketers overdo the number of outbound links, or don't rel="nofollow their outbound links to avoid passing PageRank. Too many outbound affiliate links will lead Google to suspect the page's sole intention is to generate revenue, and not provide value.

If you are worried that affiliate links might be affecting traffic, then remove them or reduce their number. Give Google a few months to update its index and see if there is any change in traffic. Yes, you'll lose out on some revenue, but if your organic search traffic increases, you stand to make more in the long run.