SEO and the Sponsor's Site Name
 

I know there have been some threads and posts about when affiliates SEO for a site name (ex: trying to rank for "Bang Bus"). I'm wondering from a sponsors point of view, what their thoughts are on this. Is this considered "stealing" traffic from a sponsor, or just part of the game?

I guess I could understand both sides of the coin on this one. Sponsors built the name and brand up, and should get the traffic for their names. However, if an affiliate can outrank a sponsor for his own site, more power to him. It means he is promoting that site, and possible doing it in more ways than just that.

There is also the factor of an affiliate code url outranking the original site URL and thus pushing the sponsor's site out of the index in favor of theirs (ex: www.site.com replaced by www.site.com?id=353454). I've seen this on some MAJOR sites that get MAJOR search engine traffic. How do sponsors deal with this?

Just thought this would be a good discussion, and relevant to many of us who do SEO and occasionally trump a sponsor in the rankings.

as a sponsor I wouldn't care as long as that page only displays your site. But what you going to do about it? Not much I don't think other then try to get the higher ranking.

As long as your sending to the site being searched for, I can't see any reason why a sponsor would be upset. Sure it's their brand name and/or site name, but you're not diluting their trademarks (or service marks) and you are sending the traffic to their site (hence making them money as well). So now they're paying for it where they could have been getting it for free originally, but that's not an affiliate's fault for outranking them on an SE. That's my point of view at least.
WG

I know that it gets under the skin of a few very large program owners just the same if people target the name of their site.

if i out-ranked them and they complained i would send the traffic somewhere else but keep the ranking... screw them

only exception would be if they had the name trademarked... and I mean trademarked... im sick of people that think just because they have a site called donkeydickblowers that they have that trademarked and no one else can use donkeydickblowers on the pages.

Of course it makes some owners made, but there are two ways of looking at it.

If you are a program owner you want all of the top 10 results to direct to your site -- no a competitors. I found one program where a top keyword (not the exact site name, but it contained the name) was directly to a site with tons of free pics hosted on a site covered with PPC ads. Of course, I sent the sponser an e-mail and the site was down in a few hours.

Sponsers are losing a lot of traffic for keywords they, or their affiliates should be ranking for. When someone searches for your site and finds free content or a link to a competitors site that isn't good.