Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:

Affiliate links are always considered to be low quality links. That is why you should always nofollow affiliate links to make sure you won't be categorized as linking to too many low quality sites.

Are you sure that using "no follow" on links really does anything than making sure that link juice doesn't get passed on to them? From what I've read Google still follows those links to check them out and can still judge your site based on what they find. It's not like making them no follow makes them disappear.

I honestly want to know because I've research no follow to death but still don't really understand it and it seems it has been evolving ever since it was introduced.

 

No follow doesn't make it disappear. Google's recommended use of no follow includes (1) ads (2) sites you don't trust (3) Sites you don't feel like giving any authority value. They are still crawled. If they figure out the links are ads and you have not nofollowed you will be dinged. If they crawl the site and find the site is of low quality, "you" won't be taken seriously. A lot of people think linking to other sites will harm them so they try to minimize the links. That is wrong. Linking to other authority site will "increase" your authority on the topic as un-intuitive that may sound. And linking to too many bad neighborhood site will reduce the value of your site. No follow is just letting google of your intentions.

Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:

Affiliate links are always considered to be low quality links. That is why you should always nofollow affiliate links to make sure you won't be categorized as linking to too many low quality sites.

 

Are you sure that using "no follow" on links really does anything than making sure that link juice doesn't get passed on to them? From what I've read Google still follows those links to check them out and can still judge your site based on what they find. It's not like making them no follow makes them disappear.

I honestly want to know because I've research no follow to death but still don't really understand it and it seems it has been evolving ever since it was introduced.

Interesting. I didn't know that.

Affiliate links are always considered to be low quality links. That is why you should always nofollow affiliate links to make sure you won't be categorized as linking to too many low quality sites.

 

Are you sure that using "no follow" on links really does anything than making sure that link juice doesn't get passed on to them? From what I've read Google still follows those links to check them out and can still judge your site based on what they find. It's not like making them no follow makes them disappear.

I honestly want to know because I've research no follow to death but still don't really understand it and it seems it has been evolving ever since it was introduced.

I did a search for "credit cards" and got a site that is a credit card directory type site, and their landing page is just a directory of credit cards with affiliate links.

So I don't see how that is allowed but your type of page is not.

I've thought about using that $100, maybe a good way to go about it is to target a completely non-competitive keyword, and then to really resolve an issue or offer usable info on that subject, then maybe people will stick around or something, but it's hard to spend money on traffic without seeing it quickly convert to revenue.

They seem to have got it completely wrong with your site, but it would be
impossible to convince them of that. If you want to carry on with PPC
advertising then you will have to remove all paid and affiliate links on
a landing page and request reconsideration. It is really hard to
convert PPC traffic to regular readers and I agree with the need for a
special landing page to get it to work. Let us know how you get on

I only have affiliate links to amazon (ok, and a couple home-page ones but those are nofollowed) and I don't no-follow those, but if I had a bunch of affiliates then I would probably no-follow them as well.

I keep getting that coupon too... maybe I should use it.

MoneyIsTheRoot said:

I'd say forget the $100 bucks and pretend the whole thing didnt happen...they mail me that same coupon once a month.

Robert, in your case what I would do is create a landing page thecollegeinvestor.com/welcome and remove affiliate links/ads in that page. Put together a good summary, you can borrow most of the stuff in your start here page. I have not used adwords personally so I don't know if google considers the page separately from the site, but it might be worth a try if it won't take more than 10 mins to put a landing page together? Generally adwords to your main site never works. Direct them to a single post or a targeted page.

I'd say forget the $100 bucks and pretend the whole thing didnt happen...they mail me that same coupon once a month.

I will probably use it for my niche site.  I've been doing that regularly and it has been fine.  What's more irritating is my niche site has the same number of links!