Google hates landing pages

[Chris Moore]

Why does Google hate landing pages so much? Or any page with affiliate links for that matter?

I hate their site policy bu&%$it. :minirant:

[Matt.Lake]

Because they care about the user experience and for the most part affiliates don't offer a good one.

[Andyhenry]

They don't hate pages with affiliate links in. Why do you say that?

I've got lots of sites/pages that have affiliate links and have never had a problem with them - for 10 years.

[Chris Moore]

Originally Posted by Matt.Lake

Because they care about the user experience and for the most part affiliates don't offer a good one.

They apply a blanket policy for anything that closely resembles a landing page. They don't even read the content. They're a bunch of idiots if you ask me.

[Matt.Lake]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

They don't hate pages with affiliate links in. Why do you say that?

I've got lots of sites/pages that have affiliate links and have never had a problem with them - for 10 years.

I imagine he's referring to Adwords. Their approach to affiliates is quite different with Adwords than with their organic results.

[WillR]

Originally Posted by Andyhenry

They don't hate pages with affiliate links in. Why do you say that?

I've got lots of sites/pages that have affiliate links and have never had a problem with them - for 10 years.

I think he may be talking about Google Adwords? They don't like bridging pages that simply pass people over to affiliate products.

[Lucia]

to rank high in google you need:

• a keyword related domain name
• keyword related content

they dont like landing pages because of poor quality content, but they have no problem with affiliate links. its annoying, but there are ways around it.

[scottyaks143]

I didn't know that google hates it.

[Matt Ausin]

G is all about the user experience, and most of the landing pages doesn't really stand out in that regard.

It is not like they hate landing pages or pages with affiliate links as such. I speak from experience, when I say that this doesn't have any effect on rankings.

And if you are talking about Google Adwords, it is the same thing - G is after good user experience in any case, be it organic search results or paid clicks. They care not about the webmaster, but about the end-user - which is why they have a huge business

Basically, if you offer enough content and genuinely think about your customer - G will be more than fine with your page having almost anything on it.

But nice minirant, it does indeed sometimes seem that G just hates affiliates

[zac2]

They hate bridge pages, strange as they never used to a few years ago.

[daddykool]

Never had any probs, has always been Micro$oft engines that have delisted / not listed our landers, just make sure the lander has at least 34 words on it, that are connected and unique to the "users search" and / or "adwords ad" and an RSS feed and you will have no issues with the big G :-)

[Lucid]

First, a landing page is any page on the Internet that someone _lands_ on after clicking a link. I don't know why affiliate marketers use that term to mean only one they create. So every page on the Internet is a landing page, whether we are talking about PPC or natural rankings.

I'm pretty sure too that Chris is referring to Adwords, specifically bridge pages. However, doesn't mean that cannot transfer over to natural rankings as well. As pointed out, Google is looking after the searchers' best interests so it's possible that bridge pages can soon lose ranking in the organics.

A bridge page is your sales (landing) page that contains links to affiliates which land on the affiliate's own sales page. Think of it as going into a store, getting a sales pitch from a salesman and you are convinced and want to buy. He then brings in another salesman to do virtually the same pitch. That is called a bad user experience.

If the customer tells you he's sold and wants to buy, don't take him to another salesman, take him to the cash register.

[Chris Moore]

Originally Posted by WillR

I think he may be talking about Google Adwords? They don't like bridging pages that simply pass people over to affiliate products.

I'm talking about both actually. Google seems to penalize affiliate sites when it comes to ranking and landing pages when it comes to Adwords...

[Lucid]

Originally Posted by Chris Moore

I'm talking about both actually.

We know for sure about the PPC side. Much harder to figure out what's going on for the organics side. But I've suspected for a while this could happen. Mabye it already has. Only makes business sense. I also believe that sooner or later, the other search engines will have to follow just to keep up with Google. For that reason, my opinion is that every site owner should stop complaining and comply with the industry leader.

[catech]

Google hates crappy landing pages! lol ;-)

I was at this conference a few months back. This guy Jon Benson who does all those fit over 40 and other body buildings sites was there. He was talking about how Gooogle Slammed his sites. He had a meeting with them... yada... yada...

They directed him to look at the My Alli site. You know the pill for losing weight? Just thought I would throw that out there. This is a site that Google actually said "Follow This and you will be ok" At least that is what he told us.

My 2 cents!

[Shakakka]

A landing page is the gateway to a payment page, and that's it's purpose. Even though the landing page itself might be full of content, the rest of that "site" (as in the URL) is barren or non-existent.

Google's never going to 'like' a 1 or 2-page website. It wants informative sites with many pages, useful info, and hopefully some regular updates. Landing pages are none of those things.

[Traffic Eagle]

Google doesn't hate landing pages - as was said previously, this is the page you land on when you click a link, it doesn't necessarily have to be a direct sales page. Squeeze pages on the other hand are generally not liked by google as are bridge pages.

You can get round this by including additional pages with lots of content (could be through links in your footer) and ensuring you have the privacy, contact, disclaimer pages somewhere in your footer as well.

[Tyler Abernethy]

Originally Posted by Chris Moore

They apply a blanket policy for anything that closely resembles a landing page. They don't even read the content. They're a bunch of idiots if you ask me.

they certainly do read your content, every single page has been receiving a content score since the first search engines were made in the mid 90's

Also, you are partly right about the blanket.. they do have techniques to find landing pages, but they do not discriminate against "affiliate links" they merely discriminate against "affiliate pages"

its all about the user experience

in my tests the content is usually how they find the crappy affiliate pages

Hope that helps clear the air a little,
Tyler Abernethy

[Warriorman1]

Originally Posted by Chris Moore

Why does Google hate landing pages so much? Or any page with affiliate links for that matter?

I hate their site policy bu&%. :minirant:

Originally Posted by Matt.Lake

Because they care about the user experience and for the most part affiliates don't offer a good one.

Originally Posted by Chris Moore

They apply a blanket policy for anything that closely resembles a landing page. They don't even read the content. They're a bunch of idiots if you ask me.

Originally Posted by scottyaks143

I didn't know that google hates it.

Originally Posted by zac2

They hate bridge pages, strange as they never used to a few years ago.

Google doesn't hate "Landing pages". Matt Cutts (Googles Webmaster programmer and the man who regulates googles algorithm) clealry states on his youtube channel that you are allowed to leave affiliate links and products on your pages, but you must provide valuable content at the same time. Im sure that Matt or anyone in general, doesn't like garbage pages that possess no value to the reader and only possesses value to the marketer who may still make a sale off that page.

You have to think logically here. What is Google's primary concern? They are trying to provide people with quality, knowledgable content for those who are trying to ressolve issues and make a decision on buying a products that is best suitable for they buyer.

Google doesn't want some idiot/idiots manipulating their search engine with a bunch of junk spam.

The resolution to this topic is to just provide valuable content and then implement the monetization afterwards.

Get it?

[Tyler Abernethy]

Originally Posted by Warriorman1

The resolution to this topic is to just provide valuable content and then implement the monetization afterwards.

Get it?

I certainly hope they got it because there has been some ridiculous talk going on in this thread..


I agree with your last statement entirelly

just organize it to not look like a squeeze page and then you wont even have anything to worry about..

theres enough crappy/spammy/squeeze pages in the SERPS already leave it to the spammers man

Tyler Abernethy