Heres a scenario you dont want to happen:
Youve spent hours and hours researching the best most profitable keywords for your particular affiliate web page. You chose these keywords because they have good demand, people are searching these terms yet they are not so competitive that they are impossible to rank well for within the top 2 pages of Google MSN or Yahoo.
Youve also gained a few quality inbound links via reciprocal link partners and writing a few relevant articles that have inbound links pointing at your target page.
The search engines have rewarded your efforts by giving you a top 20 listing this popular search term.
You notice an increase in traffic to this page. No doubt due to the exposure in the SEs.
After a few days you notice your page is dropped like a hot potato and your top 20 ranking is gone youre now on page 11 buried… never to be found!
Lets back track to see what might have happened.
1. Web surfer types in your popular term into the SE (MSN, Google) (great!)
2. Your listing displays in the first two pages of search results (great!)
3. Visitor reads your description which seems relevant...