The Most Unreasonable Google Slap of All!

[derekwong28]

As some of you may know, Google took over Doubleclick in 2008 with the Performics affiliate network among its assets. Performics was duly rebranded Google Affiliate Network (GAN). Last month, GAN publishers were asked to link to active adsense account in order to be paid. The linkiing must occurred before the 21st September or else the publisher will be terminated.

As you all know, a lot of people have had their adsense account disabled, usually for invalid clicks. Many are adamant that they have done nothing wrong. In any case, the issue of invalid clicks simply does not arise with a Pay Per Sale model. A few people with disabled adsense accounts had written to GAN and got the following response.

"Unfortunately, you will no longer be able to participate in Google
Affiliate Network if you are not able to link your account to an approved
AdSense account. If you are unable to link to an approved AdSense account,
we plan to terminate your Google Affiliate Network account on October 31,
2009. Any earnings prior to this date will be paid to you, through the
existing accounting information on file with Google Affiliate Network
(physical check mailing or ACH deposit).

So as it stands, on Oct 31, they are going to terminate all GAN publishers who do not have an adsense account. If indeed there are a large number of publishers involved, the merchants are going to suddenly see a big drop in affiliate driven sales! There is a big uproar about this in Abestweb now

Announcing Google Affiliate Network payments through Google AdSense - ABestWeb Affiliate Marketing Forum

Many web publishers have suffered a series of slaps from Google, be it SERPS, adsense or adwords, but this is the most uncalled for and ridiculous to date. A lot of innocent publishers are going to be punished. This is also very bad for merchants who will suddenly see a lot of their top performing affiliates dropped.


Derek

[kevinpotts]

Thanks for the info Derek... to bad this happens really!

K

[Barbara Eyre]

I might be thick on this, but what does having an Adsense account have to do with being an affiliate for ... let's say. ... Barnes and Noble?

What if you have an Adsense account to appease this new rule, but never use it? What would Google gain from those affiliates who have adsense accounts but don't use them?

These big corporations come up with the silliest of ideas. I think they need to come back to reality and the real world.

[derekwong28]

I am sure that one of the reasons why Google is doing this is so they can collect more data on a publisher's activity i.e. Adsense, Adwords, Google Affiliate Network, Gmail, Webmaster Tools, Blogger etc.

[Catalyst eMarketing]

Google Affiliate Network just blogged about the change again today to better explain their reasons and try to address the concerns.

Google Affiliate Network: AdSense Payment Integration