I’ve worryingly received an email from Google today saying my Befuddle drunk celebrity pages, “can cause users to be infected with malicious software.” As a result, “This site may harm your computer” message is printed on the search pages and the link goes to a warning page.

The email gives three example urls but it applies to many and to be honest I can’t see anything wrong. Google does say, “in many cases the webmaster is unaware because the site displays content from an ad network that has a malicious advertiser.”

My pages do contain advertising from a third party, Claxon media. I don’t know if they are to blame or not but they’ll be the first bit of code to be removed.

Now, firstly, I have to say that I have not updated Befuddle in a long long time. Seven times since 2005 in fact! Twice in March 2007, three times in January, once in December 2006 and then it was back in January 2006 before the last update.

Despite the low frequency of updates it still receives credible traffic as it receives up to 4,000 visitors each day. At its peak it had 125,000 visitors a day just as Paris Hilton became globally famous.

Now updating Befuddle is not going to be easy. It hasn’t moved with the times. It’s not written with a CMS or using server side scripting.

It’s flat HTML all crafted by hand. The site was launched in February 2000 and the code and design hasn’t progressed much since then.

Editing all my pages is going to be a painful manual chore. On top of that, I don’t even know what I need to remove. There’s no guarantee that if I remove all the advertising, that I have removed the problem.

I’ve just looked at my analytics stats and can quickly see that my Befuddle stats have halved overnight.

Now it’s a race against time. I’ve got exactly a week before my two week holiday abroad to save Befuddle.

It is an old site that I’ve grown out of. But I am fond of it and you always have to respect having thousands viewing something you’ve built.

If I don’t move quick, Google may drop the site for good. It could be a blessing in disguise but if the site is to close I want it to be my choice.

I caught the postman this morning, just as he was delivering a large brown cardboard box. I was wondering what could be inside, racking my brains, to think if I ordered something in a drunken moment.

Inside was the colourful and familiar brand of LEGO and I instantly lit up knowing I’d received a free affiliate gift.

As it turns out it was two gifts, or even three. There’s a LEGO corkscrew and bottle opener, which I can certainly make use of. There was also a nifty little key ring with a LEGO block.

Accompanied with a letter from the LEGO team there was also a catalogue and top selling product guide.

“According to the recent ‘Superbrands’ survey, by joining the LEGO scheme, you are partnering with the 7th most favourite British Superbrand.”

LEGO is exclusively on the LinkShare network and only yesterday I received an email from them asking if I had any creative requests.

I am already seeing my Shop Codes site visitors buying their Christmas gifts more than 3 months before the event. So with approximately 4 LEGO sets sold each second, you won’t go far wrong with this super brand.

If you perform a search for “BedStar” on Google, their www.bedstar.co.uk site is the number one result in the organic listings. The title, description is exactly as it is from their site. However, the display url is a webgains one and includes my affiliate tracking code.

Beds are expensive purchases and so I quickly noticed some high commissions being received and with Webgains statistics you can see the referring page for the sale.

The stats show that this has been present since 1st September which coincides with Shop Codes gaining a lot more respect in Google. My discount code site is currently receiving fantastic traffic at the moment and so it looks like the search engine is giving my links a bit more weight.

A quick search on Google shows that BedStar are not the only merchant to experience this issue. There’s a discussion at Google Webmaster help on “Affiliate Links in Natural Search Results“.

“Recently we’ve noticed that our affiliates’ links have replaced our site links in natural search engine results. However the Title and Description listed is not our affiliate’s but our own. It appears that Google is following links on affiliates’ sites to our site. Indexing our site based on our site optimization, but listing referring URL (affiliate’s) in their database.”

I don’t use paid search to advertise Shop Codes. It’s just too costly. Instead I optimise my pages so that they appear as high as possible in the organic search results pages, to attract shoppers searching for a merchants discount codes.

I also don’t use redirects, framing, popups or pulldown menus. I just link to merchants with standard text links and creatives supplied by the networks.

All in all it’s a well opimised site and ethical site. So, open question to any readers out there, which may or may not include BedStar or Webgains themselves. Are the sales legitimate? Would BedStar have a right to cancel any sales? I personally think they’re legit as in theory having that link on Google is no different to having it on my own blog. It’s just that the volume of numbers and that it’s Google make it a unique case.

It’s worth pointing out that I’m not making many sales out of this. BedStar will be the losers, who may see a drop in traffic and therefore sales as visitors may not be happy with clicking an unrecognisable display url.

I predict that Google is going to change my own rankings on the 30th of this month. Assuming they’re spidering my pages daily I could help BedStar by removing all affiliate links and just linking straight to their site? If that would make a difference or not I don’t know. It would mean I miss out on any commissions though.

Anybody want a bed? I know of a great metal bed shop that could do with some link juice.

I know of at least 25 merchants that are currently not offering discount codes whilst they did last month. This included a dozen merchants that offered an exclusive code to me. I’ve emailed and got positive responses from 4 of those but I haven’t taken the time out to contact all 12.

I’ve looked at my top 20 performing merchants to see whether a lack of codes generally or lack of Exclusive codes will make an impact on my profits. The answer is a clear YES.

• 35% of the top 20 merchants have kindly provided an exclusive voucher code.
• 20% of merchants offer a discount voucher to new customers, which all affiliates can promote.
• 20% of the merchants have not offered a code recently or do not have a code facility.
• 15% of the merchants have discount codes available to all affiliates.
• 10% of the merchants currently have no code but have had one just expired.

In October 2006, I wrote “Exclusive Discount Codes Wanted” on Affiliates4u. I had 22 Exclusive codes at the time. Today, it’s that number plus another 100.

Exclusive codes are a staple diet of Shop Codes and they’re often the only merchants who you’ll see on my most visited page.

As I reported in my last post, September is going to be a strong month for Shop Codes as I’ve got a 400% increase in traffic. I’m happy for merchants to take advantage of that uplift.

This post is not a plug for more exclusive codes though. I just want to see more merchant codes made available to all affiliates. Only four days ago I had at least 60 more on my site to promote.