There is much consternation over Google’s latest changes to their algorithm with many affiliates and merchants alike complaining as much as they complained in the Florida update of 2004!
I’ve had quite a few emails and chats requesting my views on the topics, so without further ado, here it is!
I’m going to cut to the chase here and shoot from the hip – and if I offend anyone – well, I guess you just need to face hard facts!
Who is being affected by the latest changes?
1. Merchants who have an affiliate strategy of having affiliates use multiple display URL’s with single page landing pages, designed to take up extra ads on a designated set of keywords.
2. Affiliates using these landing pages with thin content on their site.
3. Click arbitrage sites (buying Adwords clicks and landing them on Adsense Pages).
4. Merchants who are using close minded, uninformed, poorly equipped internal SEM teams and/or external SEM companies who insist that affiliates should not bid on display URL’s.
5. Advertisers which use poor quality landing pages, which are not relevant to the keywords, to buy thousands of clicks at low CPC’s.
Probably some others there that I haven’t even though of! So who is not being affected?
1. Companies that focus on relevancy.
2. Paid Search Affiliates who drive traffic directly, using direct links from Google.
3. Merchants who understand search and consider Paid Search Affiliates as part of the search channel.
4. Affiliates who are not reliant on thin sites & low quality landing pages.
5. Search marketers who are able to manage large portfolios of keywords and deep link within sites.
I’m currently in San Jose, having just returned from Affiliate Summit & CJ UK. What struck me the most out of the conferences was that the market is slowly shifting back to letting high performance search marketers who are capable of managing far more keywords than any traditional new media or search agency (1m+) on a risk basis, receive the same status as the search agency in terms of payout, trademark usage & display URL usage. It’s pretty well known that when Google released the affiliate display URL policy, the market took a knee-jerk reaction and blocked the usage of the display URL from affiliates – however the smart companies that did not, like eBay, Amazon, RealNetworks, etc, benefited tremendously from their paid search affiliate programs over the past 18 months – to the detriment of their competitors. The market is moving to PERFORMANCE SEARCH MARKETING!
Every time I meet with an online merchant – I practically always hear complaints about their Search Agency not marketing the tail adequately and just relying on brand bidding. I’m halfway through the book, The Long Tail, by Chris Anderson and I’ll post a review shortly, but the crux is that traditional search marketers which focus on less than 10,000 keywords, tend to under-deliver the potential of search marketing for their clientss.
Google’s recent changes around rebates in foreign markets (Europe, AU), will see a number of search agencies go under, in my opinion, as the loss of this important source of revenue for them will lead to them having to bill the client even more. This really pushes the search marketing affiliates into the game, as they offer a far better value proposition – no risk for the client and a will to succeed because it’s their own money at risk.
It’s time that people take a step back and observe. Google is making changes in the best interest of the user. They want one ad per page per merchant – not a lot of jump pages leading back to the same merchant. Rather use a few trusted high powered search affiliates and/or an agency and try to get to #1 on every keyword, than trying to dupe Google to get more landscape – you will always lose in the end if you try!
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Comments On This Post
July 19, 2006 at 2:39 pm
Hey Vinny, you’d be amazed at how much of what you say here concurs with the Bruce Clay Inc SEO seminar we’ve just attended in Cape Town. In terms of relevancy, you’ve reaffirmed a lot of what Bruce had to teach us about the Google algorithm, so you’re both clearly on the right track!
Lee | Cape Town Office
July 19, 2006 at 4:39 pm
Hey Vinny, you’d be amazed at how much of what you say here concurs with the Bruce Clay Inc SEO seminar we’ve just attended in Cape Town. In terms of relevancy, you’ve reaffirmed a lot of what Bruce had to teach us about the Google algorithm, so you’re both clearly on the right track!
Lee | Cape Town Office
July 20, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Hi Vinny,
What do you think about Accoona and his Pay per Lead?
Jean-Marie
July 20, 2006 at 7:20 pm
Hi Vinny,
What do you think about Accoona and his Pay per Lead?
Jean-Marie
July 21, 2006 at 6:06 pm
It was only a matter of time for Google to cange things around. With the speed at which the internet landscape is changing we should expect sites like google to adapt at a rapid pace. Remember, google is where it is because it focuses on the user – and if the user likes it, then that is what makes business sense.
Johan Bosini
July 21, 2006 at 8:06 pm
It was only a matter of time for Google to cange things around. With the speed at which the internet landscape is changing we should expect sites like google to adapt at a rapid pace. Remember, google is where it is because it focuses on the user – and if the user likes it, then that is what makes business sense.
Johan Bosini
July 25, 2006 at 11:39 am
Hello Vinny,
I can’t totally agree with you.
What more relevant than http://www.paintball-camp.com/terrain/pdv/offres-paintballcamp.htm for a paintball offer?
I been optimising this campaign since November 2005, and everything was all right.
The stats and results are simply horrible now!
Time Clicks CTR CPC Average pos Conversion rate
mai-06 2961 9,31 0,21 1,7 0,46
juin-06 2692 9,25 0,21 1,8 0,46
juil-06 1538 8,02 0,22 1,7 0,53
All time 14193 5,78 0,24 2,1 0,54
I m just wondering, why we have such low CTR since we changed nothing!
At this time, we are acquiring less people at a more expensive with a conversion rate equal of the global campaign.
We are actually, in the main trend for this activity! This doesn’t make sense, especially when we are penalised because our first page is containing a lot of images with low text density.
An other point, why don’t apply this to Kelkoo as well, who is bringing illegitimate traffic to is website to sell it for 0,40 or 0,50 the CPC. I been working a long time for an hardware ensign I know what I m talking about.
In my point of view, this will lead with fewer relevancies on Adwords and more activity on the search engine optimisation for the affiliation who will sell is traffic to Yahoo or Miva. People, who do what you are describing, can easily use cloaking for the Google Adsence bots to issue this change.
An other issue with giving an heavier weight to the destination page is actuality not a good way to correct the problem Google have with Adwords being used out of is initial design use. Let me try to figure out few things.
I got a website with Frames – I m penalised
I got a website 2.0 with Ajax – I m penalised
I got a website in Flash – I m penalised
I got a website with Images, and low text – I m penalised
Who the hell is Google to tell me how I have to code, what I have to do and so on. If one of your clients who as a great potential by advertising because he didn’t knew there was search engine optimisation, is losing totally this benefit. It will cost him a new site, and they he will be able to advertise.
Again, this makes no sense.
Sorry about the bad English, I m French.
Best regards,
July 25, 2006 at 2:37 pm
vinny,
i agree completely with you on Google’s intentions with this move. although i am starting to see problems with their execution, as usual. too often they are throwing the baby out with the bath water. i think that many mom and pop advertisers won’t have the resources to obtain the guidance needed to adjust their campaigns properly. i posted adwords screenshots from a brick and mortar real business on my site as an example. they’re not arbitrage or affiliate focused. anyhow, from what we’re seeing most of the fundamentals to counteract the quality score changes are similar to basic seo fundamentals. i don’t think search agencies will go under from this, i just think they’ll be more important than ever.
jeff
July 25, 2006 at 1:39 pm
Hello Vinny,
I can’t totally agree with you.
What more relevant than http://www.paintball-camp.com/terrain/pdv/offre... for a paintball offer?
I been optimising this campaign since November 2005, and everything was all right.
The stats and results are simply horrible now!
Time Clicks CTR CPC Average pos Conversion rate
mai-06 2961 9,31 0,21 1,7 0,46
juin-06 2692 9,25 0,21 1,8 0,46
juil-06 1538 8,02 0,22 1,7 0,53
All time 14193 5,78 0,24 2,1 0,54
I m just wondering, why we have such low CTR since we changed nothing!
At this time, we are acquiring less people at a more expensive with a conversion rate equal of the global campaign.
We are actually, in the main trend for this activity! This doesn’t make sense, especially when we are penalised because our first page is containing a lot of images with low text density.
An other point, why don’t apply this to Kelkoo as well, who is bringing illegitimate traffic to is website to sell it for 0,40 or 0,50 the CPC. I been working a long time for an hardware ensign I know what I m talking about.
In my point of view, this will lead with fewer relevancies on Adwords and more activity on the search engine optimisation for the affiliation who will sell is traffic to Yahoo or Miva. People, who do what you are describing, can easily use cloaking for the Google Adsence bots to issue this change.
An other issue with giving an heavier weight to the destination page is actuality not a good way to correct the problem Google have with Adwords being used out of is initial design use. Let me try to figure out few things.
I got a website with Frames – I m penalised
I got a website 2.0 with Ajax – I m penalised
I got a website in Flash – I m penalised
I got a website with Images, and low text – I m penalised
Who the hell is Google to tell me how I have to code, what I have to do and so on. If one of your clients who as a great potential by advertising because he didn’t knew there was search engine optimisation, is losing totally this benefit. It will cost him a new site, and they he will be able to advertise.
Again, this makes no sense.
Sorry about the bad English, I m French.
Best regards,
July 25, 2006 at 4:37 pm
vinny,
i agree completely with you on Google’s intentions with this move. although i am starting to see problems with their execution, as usual. too often they are throwing the baby out with the bath water. i think that many mom and pop advertisers won’t have the resources to obtain the guidance needed to adjust their campaigns properly. i posted adwords screenshots from a brick and mortar real business on my site as an example. they’re not arbitrage or affiliate focused. anyhow, from what we’re seeing most of the fundamentals to counteract the quality score changes are similar to basic seo fundamentals. i don’t think search agencies will go under from this, i just think they’ll be more important than ever.
jeff
July 26, 2006 at 9:54 am
So, the bottom really is that Google has constructed a Lexicon about what they believe best practise is for web design, layout, information and relevance. As far as they are concerned, this matches the majority of their users and they tweak it for various market segments. If your particular site does not match closely enough to their web intelligence, you will get penalised, whether or not it’s deserved.
I think the end result will be that people focus on smaller campaigns, which are more manageable for them, and conduct a lot more web analytics with products like Urchin.
The main impact of this landing page quality score was on Click Arbitrage sites, and these have largely been dealt with.
We need to understand that Google deals with problems of quality by writing algorithms. Sometimes the law of unintended consequences take place. These algorithms are by design, meant to remove a certain “genre” of sites, but given the way it is written, it always has a further reaching effect.
Google does not want to deal with quality issues manually – it’s not scaleable for them.
As an aside, our company has been largely left unaffected by the changes – in fact our revenues are up this month, given our focus on relevancy – even with the 20m+ keywords that we are currently bidding on Google.
July 26, 2006 at 11:54 am
So, the bottom really is that Google has constructed a Lexicon about what they believe best practise is for web design, layout, information and relevance. As far as they are concerned, this matches the majority of their users and they tweak it for various market segments. If your particular site does not match closely enough to their web intelligence, you will get penalised, whether or not it’s deserved.
I think the end result will be that people focus on smaller campaigns, which are more manageable for them, and conduct a lot more web analytics with products like Urchin.
The main impact of this landing page quality score was on Click Arbitrage sites, and these have largely been dealt with.
We need to understand that Google deals with problems of quality by writing algorithms. Sometimes the law of unintended consequences take place. These algorithms are by design, meant to remove a certain “genre” of sites, but given the way it is written, it always has a further reaching effect.
Google does not want to deal with quality issues manually – it’s not scaleable for them.
As an aside, our company has been largely left unaffected by the changes – in fact our revenues are up this month, given our focus on relevancy – even with the 20m+ keywords that we are currently bidding on Google.
July 29, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Hi Vinny
I understand that those are many of the people being hit, but I wish Google wasn’t so opaque as to what their aims are. If they don’t want any click arbitrage sites, why not write that directly in guidelines? If they don’t want certain types of affiliate marketers, make up a rule about it.
The problem is it seems certain sites are hit while similar sites are not and Google’s lack of clarity can lead to conspiracy theories and more. I understand the broader aim but Google appears to be stomping out the little guys which helped build it’s business while giving big spenders like ebay a free ride. “User Experience” can just be a catch-all for whatever policy they want to enforce which just leads to frustration. Clear guidelines would help because at least a marketer would know where they stand when suddenly their business was yanked out from under their feet.
July 30, 2006 at 12:26 am
Hi Vinny
I understand that those are many of the people being hit, but I wish Google wasn’t so opaque as to what their aims are. If they don’t want any click arbitrage sites, why not write that directly in guidelines? If they don’t want certain types of affiliate marketers, make up a rule about it.
The problem is it seems certain sites are hit while similar sites are not and Google’s lack of clarity can lead to conspiracy theories and more. I understand the broader aim but Google appears to be stomping out the little guys which helped build it’s business while giving big spenders like ebay a free ride. “User Experience” can just be a catch-all for whatever policy they want to enforce which just leads to frustration. Clear guidelines would help because at least a marketer would know where they stand when suddenly their business was yanked out from under their feet.
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