Comments on: Google AdWords Slap on Review Sites?

By: Google Slapping Review Sites

Google Slapping Review Sites — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 23:21:08 +0000

[...] http://www.johncow.com/google-adwords-slap-on-review-sites/ [...]

By: Google Slaps Product Review Sites… |

Google Slaps Product Review Sites… | — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 00:29:24 +0000

[...] see what I mean check out this post by John Cow. Comments [...]

By: Steve

Steve — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:36:00 +0000

Google doesn’t allow more affiliate links or any link exchanges.. hence there are chances that those links may be deleted by Google.

By: David Hurley

David Hurley — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:07:50 +0000

You make a good point about including links to high authority sites lower down your page.

Maybe the way for review sites to go would be to write honest reviews of a range of competing products. Fill the reviews with valuable content that is actually of use to readers. Use cloaked links to your affiliate products and ordinary links to a bunch of their competitors lower down the page.

You might lose some customers, but you might avoid the slap and even gain better ranking… drawing more traffic to your site. Since your reviews are even handed and detailed, you will also enjoy a boost to your credibility…

By: James Richards

James Richards — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 06:59:22 +0000

“Put other links to high authority sites on your page… you can make them not very noticeable.”

Brilliant! I’ve never thought of that, and certainly haven’t read about it anywhere else (well done Jason K!).

I’ve just added that to my ‘To Do’ list.

Regards the Google’s changes – you’re quite right, life is about constant change and it’s far better to just think about it, adapt and move on.

By: Your page is now on StumbleUpon!

Your page is now on StumbleUpon! — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:09:15 +0000

[...] Your page is on StumbleUpon [...]

By: John Cow

John Cow — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:39:40 +0000

Ya it is kind of a funny thing… it is sometimes hard to remember too that they are a website that have the rights to show what they want and do not want to… and it does sometimes seem hypocritical but at the same time, they own it.

By: Tom Harvey

Tom Harvey — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:50:35 +0000

Some great tips on how to prevent and protect against this new issue. I’ve been looking at producing review sites for a while and am glad that I have held off so that I can ensure that they add genuine value and comply with these latest changes.

By: Lee

Lee — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 01:48:34 +0000

Looks to me like Google is starting to give preference to sites that mainly incorporate it’s own Adsense program which is an affiliate program itself… maybe it does’nt like the competition. Hmmmm… I mean, if affiliates are pulling high ranks organically, why would advertisers pay Google for Adwords when their getting free exposure through their affiliates anyway, right?
You really should’nt scare me like that. I’m Scared!
It’s a dog eat dog losing battle.

By: John Cow

John Cow — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:28:13 +0000

Well personally i have experienced a couple years ago that google turfed sites of mine that had loads of outgoing affiliate links from their rankings. Some completely deindexed. I have to admit these where packed full of affiliate links… since i stopped doing that i have ever had a site drop out of the index.

I truly believe that AdWords and SEO, as far as landing pages go, are getting closer in similarity. Just like google does not want the same results appear (even on different domains) in the organic listings, they also want the same for paid listings… the problem is with billions of ads they need an auto detect method… and this is one example of it.

You know I honestly believe that Google likes to scare people as well. They do something like this and give it a bit of a push to put the scare of banishment in people… causes people to focus on quality more.

By: John Cow

John Cow — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 22:22:21 +0000

Make sure there are other links on the site and you should be ok… most review sites have multiple affiliate links.

By: Skip L.

Skip L. — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 20:26:05 +0000

I’ve seen comments on the original article’s site complaining about the spammy nature of review sites that are cluttering the index, and it’s relation to this slap. Correct me if I’m wrong, but this doesn’t seem to be related to traffic derived from non-Adwords sources.

By my reading, it’s only related to “arbitrage” in a sense; bid on the term “blue widgets”, someone clicks on your PPC link and they land on your site containing an affiliate link to a site that sells blue widgets.

Since your placement in the PPC queue is related to the quality score, if you don’t have a “high-value” page at that link (i.e. just a sell page and aff link), Google puts you at the bottom of the heap (quality=0).

Quality score isn’t the only metric used in placement but is a pretty big factor. Dropping from #1 to #8 in the PPC placement is what this slap seems to refer to. Even bidding higher won’t offset the lower quality assignment.

So affiliate links on SEO’ed pages for blue widgets, even if a crappy one, shouldn’t be affected at all. Again, tell me if I’m way off base here.

By: kmjamal

kmjamal — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 17:23:01 +0000

what if i have a single product blog and affiliate link on the page ? will that also effect my site ?

By: tonyrocks

tonyrocks — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 16:48:58 +0000

Oh man…I’ve finally got the nerve to start pushing affiliate sites with Adwords. There goes my fun…and to think I was hoping to buy a Pagani Zonda for myself with TONYROCKS painted on it

By: Vital

Vital — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:49:59 +0000

I have been fortunate so far. I have plenty of affiliate links on my site, yet my quality score still runs high (maybe because my site is a service, offering a real search to job seekers? Don’t know).

Thanks for sharing your insights. I was just thinking about it and lo and behold – I got my answer.

By: Tips

Tips — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 05:34:10 +0000

hey this is a great post. i don’t knew those things but but your post helped me a lot. there been always problem for the websites which uses affiliate links but we can sort out some of this problem by implementing your tips. thanks for this post… good luck.

By: swifttaxi

swifttaxi — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 23:32:34 +0000

John! I never thought of this things, I will put caution to be in situation.

Thanks

By: John Paul

John Paul — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 19:29:06 +0000

Hey John great post, I have been cloaking aff links on my sites for awhile and so far no issues with Google, or Adwords.

Cloaking has the added benefit of security on your links and income,, so cloak..cloak now..lol

By: John Cow

John Cow — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:27:51 +0000

You say… “Cloaking affiliate links will even get you into deeper mud with Google.” .. i need to ask you “according to who?”

Do you have proof of that yourself or are you just reciting something?

I have loads of ppc review sites out there and so do my buddies who cloak their links (iframes, 301 redirects, php redirects and so on) and none of us got touched that do that. Looks like proof to me… where is your proof on your statement.

By: Liane YoungBlogger

Liane YoungBlogger — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 04:36:38 +0000

Wrong move. Cloaking affiliate links will even get you into deeper mud with Google. As far as Google is concerned, they don’t like people to ‘no’ be aware of the link they’re actually clicking. SO I guess, the right answer is, affiliate link moderation.