Is Google punishing Affiliate Review Sites?

? that has been out for a while and i put it into the sky i falling basket and probably more a knee jerk.

that being said G are enforcing more of the policies that are currently in place more so than re inventing the wheel, and what that report does not show or link to are the sites? are they reviewing what topic ? make money / snake oil ? and the like ? i highly suspect they would be along those lines.

So with that it probably is an unbalanced view of what is happening, never let the truth stand in the way of a good story as it is often said.

a reply from google states to have good customer experience to do this with a review page

/\ sounds like a review page to me,

All of that said, there is another side to the coin where if you peddle a review page that runs products that G does not like and this is where people are confused when people ask can you do this and can you do that, often the answer varies Dependant on what it is you are peddling.

I can say that if you peddle make money / gazillions on-line in any form just about be it review or not it will be slammed with little or no mercy from G and will probably get a account suspended for life / bang

other border line topics seem to be getting a warning.

One thing i am seeing right now with no answers is some people offering a guide for sale that involves setting a up a review sites for G and those accounts are then slammed with the person setting them up being banned for life.

This is on the surface but looks strongly that way from what i have seen and to my knowledge this is still being peddled, so people need to use some common sense when reading some touted information especially in this area.

* note this is in no way related to anyone here or any product here on warrior forum and is information from other sources that is available.

If unsure simply do not go there and be safe until you can have clarity on the outcome, if you juggle knives and you are a beginner odds are one will slip and cut deep.

I hear link cloaking can help a lot. I have an affiliate site ranking on the 2nd page of Google for it's main keyword and I haven't done much of anything to it besides put some products on there, got a few backlinks, wrote an article or two. If you're using WP like me, I use Link Cloaking Plugin.

this is not proven anywhere but I would imagine if 90% of the links in your site is linking out to other site that sell products and your links are not cloaked, it would be easy for Google to figure out your site is an affiliate site and might not give your site as much "credit"

there are plugins out there for cloaking content as well as cloaking links, just be careful using them

Hi Jagger,

Just wanted to let you know that using excessive asterisks in your thread title could
cause this post to be deleted.

Don't take my post the wrong way. I'm just trying to help you knowing that
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If you look at the main forum right now you will notice that your thread is the only
one sporting special characters.

I know you did it to draw attention to the thread but this isn't allowed here for the
fact that if everyone did it then the forum would be visually hard to read.

I'm not complaining but rather trying to tell you that if you remove them(the asterisks)
from your thread title, your post will have a better chance of remaining active without being
deleted.

Hope that Helps,
Have a Great Day!
Michael

Hi Jagger,
Thanks for understanding.

While viewing your Original post in the thread, you can edit your original post
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Have a Great Day!
Michael

PS. It won't change all the post titles in this thread although it will change it in the Main forum listing.

Google isn't going to punish for affiliate review sites. I don't think they care about affiliates as long as it's not a thin affiliate page. The page must offer a lot of value for the reader. Google does not like wordpress mini sites that are mainly focused on getting affiliate sales or adsense clicks. I still don't think they penalize them, but I know of other marketers getting emails about "thin affiliate sites" when they were using adsense on them. I'm assuming that it will eventually be a problem for affiliates promoting products.

The reality is that you should provide a lot of value on a website whether it's for non profit or for profit. The value of the content attracts visitors and keeps repeat visitors coming to the site. Content is the number one thing to focus on if you want to have a successful, money making website. Google realizes that content is important, so they want to rank sites higher that provide unique content that helps the visitor.

I don't think that Google is out to penalize affiliate review sites, however, I do think your main goal should be to make a quality review site. Offer some pros and minor cons about a product, and provide as much knowledge as you can about a product. You will be able to gain more customers that way, and you will be able to build trust. After building trust and having word of mouth build traffic for you, you will be able to get email subscribers if you set up an opt in widget. Then you can promote more products and continue to build growth for your website.

LOL... The easiest way around it is to NEVER EVER let Google dictate how you build your websites!!

While Google could be a major source of traffic for you, many people find that they can drive a ton of traffic from other sources as well...

My primary website gets 10,000 clicks from Google every month, but Google only accounts for 40% of my global traffic...

Whenever Google tries to dictate to me how I should build my websites, I respond by introducing them to my favorite bird... ;-)

I will make money without Google if I need to, but I am not going to turn away any bread crumbs they would like to throw my way...

Do they need me? No... Certainly not.... But I do not need them either, to be successful with my businesses...

I am not sure if Google is punishing Affiliate Review Sites? But I do notice that most of the time, the pages without affiliate links rank better than the pages with affiliate links in Google search results (I mean they are using the same keywords).
Has anybody noticed this?