How Many "Best" Posts Can I Have Before I Have Google Problems

illmasterj

illmasterj

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How many "best" posts can I have on one website? Will Google kick my ass? Something else? Each is long form, minimum 1500 words, most over 2500 and with a lot of effort out in. Anywhere from 5-25 nofollowed affiliate links.

The plan is to dilute them to become an authority but for now they are ranking well and I figure the more money pages the better.
 
jjj_ said:
How many "best" posts can I have on one website? Will Google kick my ass? Something else? Each is long form, minimum 1500 words, most over 2500 and with a lot of effort out in. Anywhere from 5-25 nofollowed affiliate links.

The plan is to dilute them to become an authority but for now they are ranking well and I figure the more money pages the better.
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Based on my competitor research, I saw sites that keep their affiliate content below 20-40% rank easier for high volume keywords, with fewer backlinks, and shorter articles. My guess is that informational articles without any affiliate links give more niche authority in the eyes of Google than monetized best x and review articles. For instance, a 2000 word article on "How to groom golden retrievers" could be considered the same authority as two or three "Best grooming products for golden retrievers" 4000-word articles. Just my guess though, I'd like to hear what others have to say.

But then there are some, who say that 100% money content is alright, as long as it's unique and high quality.

I try to keep posts with affiliate links at around 40%, and another 60% informational content without affiliate links. Also, I limit affiliate links to around 5-15 for a 3000-5000 word post.

Has anyone gotten a penalty for writing too much affiliate content?

EDIT: Here's an official link about affiliate sites from Google. They state that as long as you provide significant value, affiliate content is fine.

However, In the webmaster hangouts, J. Mueller was asked this once, and he basically replied that if your site appears to be solely made for making money, it's evaluated much more carefully. Doesn't mean that 100% money content is necessarily bad, but you could have a harder time ranking. (Longer sandbox, needs better user signals, more links, e.t.c.)
 
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online_wizz said:
Based on my competitor research, I saw sites that keep their affiliate content below 20-40% rank easier for high volume keywords, with fewer backlinks, and shorter articles.
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I have the same concerns as you guys, but reviews and comparisons are what my visitors are looking for. I’m starting to add some informational articles, but I also don’t want to fluff the site up with unnecessary info articles either. As we have seen, people are actually pruning back their content. My site will definitely be heavier toward reviews and comparisons (money articles)...probably 70% to 30% info articles.

I could do what other sites do and have thousands of 500 word “news” articles, but that is just fluff for the audience I am targeting. They don’t care that Apple just released a security patch for iOS. They want to figure out what phone to buy.
 
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When will we get to the point when Google hegemonic reign of terror is over? I believe in a world without Google. I believe in a world where real humans connect with real humans contextually rather than algorithmically.





Then again maybe that's why I made $200 last month
 
I really believe that Google tries to figure out what the user is looking for and send them to a site that provides that. Unfortunately, so many people try to game the system that they have to keep us guessing.

Giving people what they are looking for is the only route. If that means they need a direct way to get to their solution, then great, give them a money article. If they need information only, then great, give them that.

Look at Wirecutter. Almost all of their articles are money articles. They determined that people wanted to know what the best X was without all the garbage. Therefore, they write a short intro for people who want the short story then they provide a ton of detail for people who want more. However, every article gives you everything you need to select the best X. No wading through tons of links. No garbage content filled with affiliate links.

I don't know. It is all so confusing. I'm just going to keep helping people select the best X without creating a website of 1000000 articles to try and get traffic. I'm going to try and build an overall site with only what is needed, then shift to marketing. If I get rich that is awesome. If not, then oh well...maybe I helped a few people and learned some things.
 
I too use The Wirecutter as a reference point. I have to say, they are straight up with who they are. Maybe their success is due to being a "trustworthy affiliate site" instead of gaming the system.
 
mikey3times said:
I really believe that Google tries to figure out what the user is looking for and send them to a site that provides that. Unfortunately, so many people try to game the system that they have to keep us guessing.

Giving people what they are looking for is the only route. If that means they need a direct way to get to their solution, then great, give them a money article. If they need information only, then great, give them that.

Look at Wirecutter. Almost all of their articles are money articles. They determined that people wanted to know what the best X was without all the garbage. Therefore, they write a short intro for people who want the short story then they provide a ton of detail for people who want more. However, every article gives you everything you need to select the best X. No wading through tons of links. No garbage content filled with affiliate links.

I don't know. It is all so confusing. I'm just going to keep helping people select the best X without creating a website of 1000000 articles to try and get traffic. I'm going to try and build an overall site with only what is needed, then shift to marketing. If I get rich that is awesome. If not, then oh well...maybe I helped a few people and learned some things.
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I think what you said makes sense. Writing info articles just for the sake of it is stupid. In my instance, though, informational articles are necessary to solve my audience's problems. My website is about preparing people for something specific. So it makes sense to write how-to guides, and also reviews and best x articles that recommend what items should they be purchasing.

Every time I start a discussion about this topic, nobody is really 100% certain whether it's better to stick to a certain money/info ratio or not. Also, sometimes people get really fired up to defend their point of view. On Reddit, a guy basically called me retarded for writing info content lol.

I'm still not certain if I should be keeping the money content at a minority. Maybe I should just focus on writing what's needed for my audience and forget about all the ratios. Clearly, we have a ton of examples of successful affiliate sites with 100% money content.
 
Can I write like 20 money posts straight up without affiliate links to give them some time to get ranking in Google before I delude the money posts with info posts? Or will Google see 20x "best" articles and write the site off before it is even given a chance?
 
The main purpose of 'informational' articles, from an SEO standpoint, is to increase topical relevance of your site / specific content silo.

If you take a step back and detach yourself from a 'narrow-minded' SEO approach, those informational articles can be a gold mine. You can use them to navigate the user through the entire funnel, solve their objections, educate and prepare them to take action, collect emails, get social shares, referrals, etc.

Nobody is going to do that on your buying guides/reviews.

Money content (talking affiliate stuff here) is where the engagement with your brand stops. That's why 99% of affiliate sites have 85%+ bounce rate and time on page under 30 seconds. That's not a long-term play and someone who's not looking for shortcuts is going to crush you while you're sleeping.

Just stop thinking short-term and focus on solving other people's problems. If that's via buying guides, reviews, long-form articles, videos - you'll find out by doing some proper comp analysis.
 
jjj_ said:
How many "best" posts can I have on one website? Will Google kick my ass?
(...)
The plan is to dilute them to become an authority...
Click to expand...

If your "best" posts perform well, diluting them with informational pages may blur your message. If your visitors are not interested in such articles, they won't generate any engagement and will not be of any help. Do your existing informational pages work well? If they don't, I'd stick to what's working.
 
If Best of articles are what your audience truly are looking for over info articles then it's worth looking at other avenues for traffic than just Google. If it's a niche that fits well with Pinterest then you can do well from there with optimised titles and content (even better build your content around what Pinterest users are searching for and you up your chance of success even more!)

Equally YouTube ads can be another goldmine. If you want to do well with these look beyond wide targeting and go for targeting specific videos. Targeting all videos about Blue Widgets will do okay, but if you run your ad in front of videos specifically about "What is The Best Blue Widgets / Blue Widgets Tested" you're going to do a hell of a lot better.
 
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