Danger: Affiliate program free articles cause duplicate content penalties.

The articles that your affiliate programs affiliate tools provide can possibly be holding you back from the top of the search engines and placing you in danger of a duplicate content penalty.

The Elephant in the affiliate marketing room.

What no one seems to be talking about is the fact that these articles are used verbatim by tens, hundreds and even thousands of affiliates who sign up for the affiliate programs before and after you. So some of these articles are used thousands of times, and google knows and see's this (Santa Klaus ain't got nothing on google) unfortunately for those unlucky affiliates Google is not a very understanding person. Google is not even a person. Google will see and register these articles as "duplicate content" and your website or web page may be penalized. Google does what google does with no feelings because it is an algorithm not a human being.

Algorithm: In mathematics, computing, linguistics and related subjects, an algorithm is a sequence of finite instructions, often used for calculation and data processing. It is formally a type of effective method in which a list of well-defined instructions for completing a task will, when given an initial state, proceed through a well-defined series of successive states, eventually terminating in an end-state.

That's a fancy way of saying that google is programmed to do what it does, no more, no less. Google doesn't work with you, google is like Judge Dredd, it identifies, warns (maybe) and punishes to the best of its ability. It is not personal. So be very careful how and where you use those free promotion articles you get for signing up at affiliate

Here are a few Do's and don't s you should keep in mind when using free affiliate program articles.

Dos

Do market the free affiliate articles on craigslist and emails. You can make allot of money without a website this way also.

Do find a cheap article rewriter.

Do Change keywords and phrases as many times as the number of places you place the articles. Example: To avoid duplicate content penalties from google to place the same article on craigslist, your personal domain and a post in a forum you would need the original (rewritten original if it is a free for all article from an affiliate tool box/members area) a shortened rewriten paragraph or two that leads to the original (your domain) and the un-rewritten original for craigslist. All linked to the others. Usually the forum pst leads to your domain and the craigslist post leads directly to the product ($7 domain name forwarded or???)This works well for marketing clickbank products.

Don'ts

Don't Market the same exact article written the same way on your website and craiglist. Duplicate content on craigslist and your websiite does count to google as duplicate content.

Don't Just put the same article on your site and then craigslist and also a forum without a re-write. Your site will be penalized.

In conclusions.

Free affiliate articles are a great resource if you understand that they are just a "template" for your website and not the end result. It is highly recommended that you re-write these articles before using them. The only exception is when you are using them in a place where search engine results are secondary like classified ads. Places where you are after immediate clicks. But be advised that these submissions will be indexed by search engines and will be potential duplicate content penalties waiting to happen if placed also on your personal websites and blogs without rewrites.
article source : http://ihategurus.blogspot.com/2009/01/danger-affiliate-program-free-articles.html