SEO issues with self link hosting

[Offtap]

Can anyone see any issues centralising affiliate links across a network?

Example- many of us would use some kind of redirect like

abc.com/go/afflink1
bcd.com/go/afflink1

using either htaccess, php or javascript to redirect to the affiliate site

But as your network of site grows - to change a link involves visiting 40 sites to change each of the files in the "go" folders.

Would there be any net effect from using an otherwise vacant domain to host the links - so they only need to be changed in one place?

Example
abc/go/afflink1 links to afflinks.com/1 which then redirects to affiliate site
bcd/go/afflink1 links to afflinks.com/1 which then redirects to affiliate site

So all your links across the network for afflink1 would point to your afflinks.com/1

Any changes only require changes to one file afflinks.com/1

Assuming there is nothing else on afflinks.com - would there be any issues? Assume all links no followed and afflinks.com noindex.

 

[plano]

What sort of issues do you think could arise? Is your objective to pass page rank to the affiliate sites?
<edit>You already have a "no follow" so how do you think it can impact anything?</edit>

 

[Offtap]

My personal opinion is it should cause no issues whatsoever.

I was asking to see if others held the same view hoping maybe someone could confirm it in practice.

Surprisingly there is very little evidence or example of others doing the same.

 

[James]

If the affiliate links are no follow it should not cause an SEO issue.

Matt Cutts confirms this with Affiliate links here - http://searchengineland.com/googles-matt-cutts-on-affiliate-links-we-handle-majority-of-them-125859

Or are you trying to cloak affiliate links, this site shows you how to do it -
http://www.jacobking.com/affiliate-link-cloaking

Not really advisable in some cases, yet many affiliates do it.

 

[Offtap]

Thanks - James we we cloak - always have and I think its a better solution than using a plugin.

Interesting to see a lot people recommending 302 redirects - have always used 301's that might be something to look in to.

We use meta-refresh as it drops the referrer via javascript.