November 13th, 2006 by James Omdahl
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We have been in contact with some affiliates who are feeling the effects of the Google AdWord’s Quality Score changes mentioned earlier today by Penny (great post Penny!).
I looked around a bit to see if I could find a large amount of “oh my God - Google killed my site” type-chat and I didn’t see anything too widespread at this point. It does seem that some affiliates are feeling the effects, but from what I can tell, those affiliates have sites that aren’t what Google might consider “content-rich.”
Scott Jangro posted his theory about the changes — surmising that “thin” landing pages would be the real victim of the recent PPC housecleaning at Google. He also thinks that people using “thin” landing pages will be forced to continuously rebuild new sites as soon as Google zaps their current site.
This is an interesting theory, and I hope it is correct. But there is also another theory…it is what I like to call the “wake-me-up-in-a-cold-sweat” theory. Are you ready for it? (You might want to make sure your little affiliates are out of the room before you click).
This theory goes something like this…Google’s AdWords bot is out there hunting for links that look like affiliate links on AdWords landing pages. If affiliate links are found, Google dramatically decreases the site’s Quality Score and raise its minimum bid to an amount that is too high for an affiliate to pay. By doing so Google, in effect, takes the affiliate site (and hundreds of other affiliate sites) out of the AdWords market completely. What is left are websites that have what Google considers to be a non-affiliate business model.
Pretty scary, huh?
But is this just a scary theory with no merit or do you think Google is on a crusade to remove affiliate pages from their AdWords results?
Has anyone seen or heard anything they would like to share?
We really want to know the recent changes are affecting you as an affiliate. If you could, please leave us a comment on this post- a change like this could dramatically affect your business and ours, and we want to know what affiliates are thinking. You don’t have to use your real name or email or URL - we just want to hear your opinion on this one.
Thanks in advance for your input.
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November 13th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
I have some high quality organic search traffic, great coversions on pages, what I consider good content, and have never had much luck with google adwords. I grok organic google, yahoo, msn, but I have never gotten google ppc to work with me. I would really like to read what affiliates have to say who get google to work for them.
November 13th, 2006 at 11:51 pm
This may just be the paranoid one in me but I believe that Google may be pricing the affiliates out of Adwords in order to offer their new CPA model to “non-affiliate” traditional ecommerce sites. Thus taking over our businesses. I hope not!
November 14th, 2006 at 6:49 am
Well, the only luck I had at all was with content, so I guess that came down to qualify score. Oh well, low quality me. I have called the google rep, and argued the point, and it seemed like he would flip a switch fo awhile - but then it would slide back to dismal. My thoughts are that what has worked for me is not relying on google at all - however, I am not one of the top producers here - so the problem is hitting a top in what you can generate on your own unless you just happen to luck into that one brilliant thing.
November 14th, 2006 at 12:18 pm
Just one more thought.. If Google is trying to push out affiliates and essentially become the “Wal-Mart” of all affiliates themselves, then that would not only be bad for us but also for the good companies who partner with us.
Would direct linking help affiliates avoid this problem? Im not an expert, but I believe that direct linking provides an affiliate with a “non-numbered” URL that doesnt look like an affiliate link.
November 14th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Thanks for the great comments Mar and Chuck.
Direct linking is something that I know many affiliate programs have been looking at lately to avoid any possible “affiliate penalty” that way be dished out by search engines. There do seem to be some limitations to a lot of direct linking schemes, and as CJ learned the hard way, forcing affiliates to use JavaScript links can cause a pretty serious backlash. Also, if the intention is to take affiliates out of the equation, I think they will figure out how to pick up on any affiliate linking schema. Sad, but true.
Chuck - interesting idea on the CPA model. I wonder how that would change Googles bottom-line as compared to the CPC model. If Google is trying to destroy the affiliate industry, I will be interested to see how they spin the situation to fit their “do no evil” motto. Killing a bunch of online business people’s livelihood sounds a tad evil to me.
Mar - all I gotta say is it must be pretty nice not to have to worry about Google - but to make it to the top rungs of any affiliate program you have to be working with Google in some way, shape or form.
Like Chuck said, taking affiliates out of the equation will hurt a lot of online businesses who have affiliate programs, and quite possibly, put a bunch of online businesses into serious financial peril. Once again, sounds a little evil to me.
Thanks again for the comments folks, keep them coming.
July 7th, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Good site. Thanks!