More Google Bad News?

[ThomasW]

Has anyone checked out this article by Perry Marshal? It sounds ominous for affiliate marketers!

[ThomasW]

Sorry - this is the article:

Google is cracking down on multiple industries they have deemed "Illegitimate." This guy isn't the only one BTW…
Below is a comment I got on the blog today. It's from Scott Phares, who is being told that Google considers the industry he's in to be illegitimate. He's not the first, believe me. Nor will he be the last.

He's in MLM. Those of you who know me know I'm no big fan of MLM. But that is totally irrelevant to the subject at hand. I have seen the same thing in totally unrelated industries, things that have nothing to do with affiliate marketing or business opportunities.

Where Google makes a sweeping judgment and sweeps a bunch of advertisers away. Businesses are suddenly DOA.


"Yep, you are right. Google definitely tightened the screws … already. I found out the hard way yesterday. All my PPC ads were disapproved or their Quality Score went so low they won’t ever display. I called an 800 number I have for Google and spoke with one of their adwords reps.

Google no longer considers network marketing, affiliate marketing and MLM businesses as “valid” businesses. As a result, they have disallowed all ads forwarding to affiliate links/sites, bridge pages that then forward to an affiliate site, and any site that contains or mirrors all or portions of a parent company site. Even my ads for my own personal biz site landing page and home business web sites went down.

They did not disapprove them, but they immediately lowered my Quality Score (from GREAT to POOR) so low that the ads never display. The adwords rep. also told me that to get my Quality Score back up, Google would have me increase my bid so high that it would kill my ROI completely. To all - be prepared, you may not see this happen until you edit an existing ad or create a new ad, then Goggle will review all your campaigns, that’s when all your MLM, home business and affiliate ads will drop.

I moved all mine to Yahoo last night until we all can come up with a solution to this. This is going to shut down every ad anyone has running on Google as an affiliate where you have registered a domain and have it forwarded to your affiliate links/sites. I am looking forward to your call on Monday at noon CST, hopefully you will have some suggestions as to a solution."

I recognize that there are some areas that generate lots of complaints, and Google is trying to provide a quality user experience. However this is NOT a trend any advertiser should be feeling good about. First it's anyone Google thinks is an affiliate… then it's an MLM guy… then it's someone who sells a hair growth formula… then it's YOU.

If you're saying to yourself, "Well I'm in a legitimate business, this could never happen to me," think again. By whose definition of legitimate?

Sleep with one eye open.

And don't go down without a fight.

And don't let Google be your only means of getting new customers.

And somebody please, tell Yahoo and MSN to get their friggin' act together. A mutual fund company that USED TO OWN $500 million of Yahoo stock couldn't get them to wake up, 3 years ago. But… maybe somebody else can.

If Google's the only game in town, then Google is Big Brother.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: Surely you've heard versions of the following quote - it applies here:

"They came for the Jews and I did not react because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unions and I did not react because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the communists and I did not react because I was not a communist. Then they came for the social democrats and I did not react because I was not social democrat. Then they came for me and there was nobody left to defend me."

About the Author

[Scott Woodside]

Hey, I used a couple of cool techniques to get an old site "Platinumpen.com" that no longer exists. We were on the front page of Google, and within six months had grossed nearly $1,000,000 selling a brand new product. The product? USB PENS. That's right the USB device was inside of the pen so that when you took the cap off, you had a USB. Pretty cool? Hell yes. We sold a boat load to some of the largest corporations in the World. Guess what? I think Google saw that we were successful, and banished our company from its search engines all together! It was freaking horrible. We also used Google adwords on our site for extra revenue. But I think Google still likes to see the little guy win more than a big guy. When a human at google is having a bad day or perhaps they are marketing the same product or niche, then you'll be vaporized from its culture. Carefull!

[braver55b]

This restrictions of google is becoming ridiculous, after they cancelled the google cash system in 05 alot of affiliate marketers lost a bundle and then the google slaps and now this?

Diversification is the name of the game, don't put all your eggs in one basket and rely on only one source for traffic.

[JayXtreme]

Google has rules for a reason.. to protect their assets..

Do I agree?... not all the time..

Do I adhere to them whenever necessary in order to profit richly from the service they provide... YUP!!.. ya damn right.

Adwords is a tool to USE not to be USED by.

Google didn't slap M.L.M (which is just another business model, like many others), google slapped thin and drab MLM squeeze pages being used for pay per click..

This is sooooo boring now, here's the thing.

If YOU are using Google for traffic(you don't have to use Google, so it is a choice you make), then you must, at all times, ensure that the traffic you're driving from their site is provided with a unique and refreshing, pleasant user experience.. not just a squeeze or copy.

Would you link FROM your site to another site that would upset your potential customers?.. NO, so why should Google?

Peace

Jay

[JayXtreme]

Originally Posted by Scott Woodside

Hey, I used a couple of cool techniques to get an old site "Platinumpen.com" that no longer exists. We were on the front page of Google, and within six months had grossed nearly $1,000,000 selling a brand new product. The product? USB PENS. That's right the USB device was inside of the pen so that when you took the cap off, you had a USB. Pretty cool? Hell yes. We sold a boat load to some of the largest corporations in the World. Guess what? I think Google saw that we were successful, and banished our company from its search engines all together! It was freaking horrible. We also used Google adwords on our site for extra revenue. But I think Google still likes to see the little guy win more than a big guy. When a human at google is having a bad day or perhaps they are marketing the same product or niche, then you'll be vaporized from its culture. Carefull!

Scott... the adverts on the TV aren't actually talkin about your problem directly.. it's an advert.

[Ryan700]

And then a Big Box retailer who scams their customers is allowed to advertise with Google unabated. 10 years ago when the came to Canada I googled them and the first page was filled people who were upset with them and called them scammers. Now the first website dedicated to calling them out is near the bottom on the second page. The first and most of the second search results are filled with their ads. Are they better corporate citizens now. I doubt it. The only good searching at Google is for when you want to buy something. Research? Forget about it! Use something else!

[ThomasW]

This is Perry Marshal's website if you want more information. If you don't know who Perry Marshal si you should check him out. He is the master of Adwords. (I am not an affiliate, nor do I have any involvemnt with Perry Marshal)
Google is cracking down on multiple industries they have deemed "Illegitimate." This guy isn't the only one BTW…

[sevenish]

Google has an affiliate program of its own. Kinda weird.

[LivingCovers]

Oh no...not again!
Not when i'm just about start out!

[locke]

I am sometimes amazed at the sheer and awesome power that Google posesses to make or break businesses.. It seems very odd that many people depend on google for their traffic and then depend on the traffic to make advertising money via adsense from google. Talk about a crazy relationship...

[Quentin]

Thats not bad news Thomas thats great news.

As a google customer who uses their product I get sick of the adsense pages that provide no real content.

Poorly created squeeze pages and all the crap.

I say good on them.

As for MLM I rang my mate at google and he said not all the MLM just the hackers.

Great news.

Quentin

[Charann Miller]

That's why it pays to diversify your traffic generating methods, way too risky to put all your traffic eggs into one basket. That's scary, I remember the days of 5 cent clicks and who even knew what quality score was?

Google will keep making changes but marketers will evolve accordingly, that is a big one though. Even with a recession they're turning mega bucks down with this decision.

Watch this space I guess.

[shurets1]

Well, I can say that I'm used to bad news from google
so this is not surprising me.

[Traffic101]

Hi, thanks for the update. Just confirms the point you need pages with actual content as opposed to affiliate squeeze pages. Glad I am on the right track. Good luck.

[yourreviewer]

To be honest, I think folks try to overcomplicate things. It all boils down to providing fantastic content and building links steadily over time. The problem is most Internet Marketer's can't wait and they want immediate results. So they resort to half a**** efforts that lead to half a**** results.

[Bill Farnham]

I typed - affiliate marketing - into Google and there were 467 Adwords advertisers bidding on that keyphrase.

Kinda makes you wonder...

KJ

[MarketingProInfo]

...neat idea about the USB pens though ...hopefully you made some money before Google pulled the plug.

[tommyp]

Originally Posted by Ryan700

And then a Big Box retailer who scams their customers is allowed to advertise with Google unabated. 10 years ago when the came to Canada I googled them and the first page was filled people who were upset with them and called them scammers. Now the first website dedicated to calling them out is near the bottom on the second page. The first and most of the second search results are filled with their ads. Are they better corporate citizens now. I doubt it. The only good searching at Google is for when you want to buy something. Research? Forget about it! Use something else!

Isn't that the truth. I used to be able to find what I want in Google. Now I rarely can.

A couple of months ago I created a site for PPC. Has About page, Privacy Policy, Contact, a few articles (all on the same page) and a few other pages of that sort and all that good stuff (Sitemap and RRS Feed too, anything I thought would make Google like it)

Well, I'm not complaining with what I'm about to say, but for all their talk about a good user experience they sure do have a lot of crap results.

As far as the site I mentioned, I can't remember doing anything to it. Like I said, it was done just for a good quality score in Adwords. I SEOd it but it wasn't for SEO.

The thing is, the content was all swiped from the merchant's site.

I checked about a week ago or out of curiosity and ran a search on a related keyword.

The merchant was number 1 or 2 and I was number 6 or so, having done nothing. Thanks Google. So much for the duplicate content story.

I checked again a couple of days ago. Now I'm number 4.

[Mangozoom]

God bless Google ... hmmmmm

Just dont do Adwords is my take on this.

I wonder what happen if affiliates everywhere closed their Google PPC campaigns for 24 hours??

The thing is some many of us are at their mercy, maybe we do need to spread our risk more and also look to come together with one voice ...

Anyone fancy forming an Affiliate/IM politcal party

John

[JayXtreme]

Originally Posted by tommyp

So much for the duplicate content story.

I checked again a couple of days ago. Now I'm number 4.

What duplicate content story is this?...

For a minute there, you almost had a compelling argument. There is NO duplicate content story like you describe it.

[youallnome]

It really makes little difference whether you love, hate, feel jealous, or don't care what Google does. Truth is, they make billions by advertising other companies/products. In the early days they did not care what people did. Partly due to naive business experience, partly due to expansion and advertising, good or bad.

As they grow, like all good businesses, they alter their rules, realise their failures, take on board criticism from customers and learn to beat the low quality websites, the con websites, and the bad and "not so good" websites.

As jayXtreme referenced on
They want quality. They want to know that there customers ads get seen on good websites.

They also want to know surfers get what they searched for when they click paid ads. Not such a bad business policy, don't you think? 90% of my sites are content based. The search engines love them. They also like the idea of AdWords ads linking to pages within content sites. So it is a win win, whatever niche you work with.

I say move up and follow suit!
Google does not hate websites that advertise. They just hate websites that do nothing but lead to a sale "without" giving something of value as well. Most advertisers (clever, up to date advertisers), are adding a simple link that leads to a set of articles based on the same keyword. Not such a hard thing to do, surely?

And for me, adding relative content for free, focused on the same keyword/idea actually gives more opportunity to relax the surfer, and get the click. They say it takes up to 7 views to get a sale - Well, 7 articles, well written, relative, with good sales copy gives you that edge.

I don't hate or love them for what they are. I love the money you can earn from them, and I hate they are richer than me - but in the best way!

Great idea for a post. Thanks!
Wishing you the best of success.

Sincerely,
John Adams
Twitter me here

[BigRedNotebook]

I don't think it's as bad as Perry M. made it out to be.

Google isn't going to say "no" to affiliate marketing en toto. They run their own affiliate network and they like the ad revenue too much to turn the money spigot off.

They just have to balance that with the risks associated with sending people to low-quality sites via ppc ads. The ad money doesn't flow if ad clickers aren't happy with what they find on the other side.

The only real cause for concern is that Google does have the power (and has exercised it before) to basically wipeout entire niches on Adsense. They can either ban the ads outright or torpedo landing page quality scores to crush any potential ROI for targeting a specific niche Google decides it doesn't like.

That's what seems to be happening with some of the MLM stuff and that should ring a few alarm bells, especially for those who might be working in niches that are populated by more than a handful of marketers with "questionable" products and/or ethics.

[X]

Let's slow down here just a bit
because assumptions lead to
hysteria.

Google's main issue is adding value.

"Marketing is a set of processes for
creating, communicating and delivering
VALUE to a customer." - X

The "average" ppc marketing affiliate
does not create, communicate or
deliver any value to a customer, at
all.

Direct linking, and especially masked
linking does not add value.

Most affiliates and MLMers are not
adding any value - this is the
fundamental problem with their
approach.

Perry is overstating the issue,
as he has in the past, by saying
Google is out to get affiliates -
no, Google is out to get a certain
TYPE of affiliate.

Google's approach to dealing with
this issue is NOT to ban anyone
appearing to promote a product as
an affiliate; Google's approach is
that your destination URL must now
be on the same URL as your display
URL - this, however is rumor right
now but clearly that eliminates
direct linking, a number of tricky
tactics some of us affiliates have been
using, etc.

In short - you need to own the site
where you're sending people. I am
sure this solution solves a ton of
Google's headaches (for now).

I don't feel sorry for anyone caught
in these crosshairs - I've been
teaching my customers that this is
stupid for years. If you're going to
be in the game, then this is for your
own damn good.

I've had to delay the release of the
Affiliate Black Book because these
changes - which Google itself hasn't
written about publicly, that I've seen,
but has been validated with a bunch
of people I've talked to - will have a
huge impact on how affiliates are
doing business. But what's cool about
that is if you work affiliate marketing
the RIGHT WAY you could be making
a whole lot more money than you
have been.

Right now, this means some affiliates
have a lot of work to do if they want
to stick around - the one's who've
been doing it right all along are going
to jump ahead in the meantime.

All the best to you all - X

[Louis Raven]

So what exactly is a quality page?

Can I use Adwords to promote my squeeze page? What about if the squeeze page was filled with golden info that the end user would love?

It seems (from what I hear) Google will not be happy until we pay to send people to websites that make no money at all lol.

Top affiliates (yes you), please show me an example of a page that is both.. good in Googles eyes (non slapped and beneficial to end user), and is being monetized.

Louis

[BigRedNotebook]

Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines - AdWords Help

That's what Google has to say about landing page quality. I know it's not a concrete example, but I'm loathe to hand out URLs in a well-trafficked forum--a little like telling the local burglar when you're going on vacation.

The LP standards, interestingly, are becoming more and more like the regular ol' webmaster guidelines every day.

[Mike Hill]

This is the best news I've heard all day... There was a guy in this forum shooting his mouth off a few days ago about making money with PPC and how us product creators are wasting our time creating products and selling them instead of promoting CPA via Google Adwords.

Karma's a _ _ _ _ _!

Mike Hill

[lansing]

There is a reason to Google's madness and it is this - a whole bunch of people using Google to search for stuff believe the ads in the search results are search results, not ads. Google knows this, of course, and probably is in no hurry to educate its searchers as this illusion makes them quite a bit of money.

The thing is, when searchers click on an ad that they assume is a search result and all they see is a crap page full of advertisements, they assume that Google is showing them the crap, not some advertiser.

So to maintain the illusion, Google must insist that ads look like search results and link to pages that look like something the searcher might be looking for (ie, not crap).

If some govenment agency ever insists that Google clearly identify its ads as ads, then Google might loosen up its restrictions (as they will be in full scale We're Losing Money panic mode).

[IMadeYouLook.com]

I had a similar problem selling that "cocaine" energy drink many moons ago. (Calm down its just a name/marketing ploy)

Google banished me like a leper.

then ebay and others hopped on the band wagon it was a nightmare!

But I really enjoy google's products, so no hard feelings.

[Amitywill]

To be honest I see this a big opportunity...

Think about it this way, if they are banning affiliate promotions then it will eliminate 90% of the competition which means we can create our own quality products and save 90% on our advertising costs.

The only losers here are the people that don't adapt and move on from affiliate promotion to product creation.

Or are google coming down hard on actual product owners too?

Will

[innocent07]

So what are our solutions to this? (besides getting other alternative methods of traffic) ?

How about...... providing google with good content pages with a link which directs us to an affiliate page? so you are providing a great content link with a link at the bottom....?

would that be ok according to Perry marshals article on the 'google bad news' ?

[stevecl]

You all may find this interesting : I Shouldn't Share This: On Google Slap

Regards
Steve

[RGallowitz]

Whoohoo, now the SEO industry is going to boom again.

Maybe, maybe not.

My personal opinion on this is data capture pages (squeeze pages).

For those of you who are slapped, go have a look at your merchant's site. You'll see that 90% of the campaigns that are being slapped are affiliate landing pages leading to merchant pages that have email capture forms. This is not the case for all merchant landing pages but most definitely CPA landing pages.

I have experienced this new pain myself, but it's not the end of the world.
Affiliates just need to create "fatter" sites AND study their merchant's landing pages.

Reinhardt

[Shannon Herod]

Perry Marshall is an extremely credible source, so I guess we are going to just have to wait and see how this pans out.

I think Google mostly is going to be looking more for quality, and not banning everyone promoting affiliate programs.


Regards,

Shannon Herod

[innocent07]

Originally Posted by RGallowitz

Whoohoo, now the SEO industry is going to boom again.

Maybe, maybe not.

My personal opinion on this is data capture pages (squeeze pages).

For those of you who are slapped, go have a look at your merchant's site. You'll see that 90% of the campaigns that are being slapped are affiliate landing pages leading to merchant pages that have email capture forms. This is not the case for all merchant landing pages but most definitely CPA landing pages.

I have experienced this new pain myself, but it's not the end of the world.
Affiliates just need to create "fatter" sites AND study their merchant's landing pages.

Reinhardt

gud point.

[Kay King]

I've also noticed some really bad google results increasing in the past year or two. One bad landing page after another, sites totally unrelated to what I was searching for (except they used that term in their ad to draw clicks - how dumb is that?).

Perry Marshall is a credible source - but he has a dog in the hunt. Bad news buzzing about adwords - who do people go to for info - or a new product? I'm not saying he's wrong to be concerned, but it does get attention.

Adapt - don't panic. And if you are using this latest google info to say "now I can't start", there'll be another reason to not start next month!

kay

[TommyG]

Originally Posted by BigRedNotebook

I don't think it's as bad as Perry M. made it out to be.

Google isn't going to say "no" to affiliate marketing en toto. They run their own affiliate network and they like the ad revenue too much to turn the money spigot off.

They just have to balance that with the risks associated with sending people to low-quality sites via ppc ads. The ad money doesn't flow if ad clickers aren't happy with what they find on the other side.

The only real cause for concern is that Google does have the power (and has exercised it before) to basically wipeout entire niches on Adsense. They can either ban the ads outright or torpedo landing page quality scores to crush any potential ROI for targeting a specific niche Google decides it doesn't like.

That's what seems to be happening with some of the MLM stuff and that should ring a few alarm bells, especially for those who might be working in niches that are populated by more than a handful of marketers with "questionable" products and/or ethics.

Google did this last June with the "Water for Gas" ebooks that were popular when gas prices were sky high. I was promoting a few of them through a review site and Google told me they would no longer allow water for gas type ads in Adwords.

[dolcevita]

Originally Posted by Amitywill

To be honest I see this a big opportunity...

Think about it this way, if they are banning affiliate promotions then it will eliminate 90% of the competition which means we can create our own quality products and save 90% on our advertising costs.

The only losers here are the people that don't adapt and move on from affiliate promotion to product creation.

Or are google coming down hard on actual product owners too?

Will

yes, I also think that.


Question.
Are Big G not looses millions in this way?

[robbyst]

Hi, I think it's the time for new companies to start taking over Google. The problem is that when a company groww too much and gains power, it can do virtually anything it want. Yet, the law of cycles should stop that situation soon.

[MizzCindy]

Originally Posted by Kay King

...Adapt - don't panic. And if you are using this latest google info to say "now I can't start", there'll be another reason to not start next month!kay

I think this bears repeating! There will always be change. That cannot be the litmus test for not taking action. Simply roll with it, learn from it and move on.

Look for the opportunity behind the change!

Cindy

[redneo]

yeah... i think we need to get usual with a net dominator as big as yahoo. so the only one think that we can do is make our online business "accepted" by them.

one for all, all for google...

[LegitBlogger]

Yes, the fella who said Yahoo and MSN better get their acts together is very right. We can't afford to continue having only Google dictate the game, as they just can't be trusted.

[Bakai]

I don't even try to make great QS sites anymore. I have developed my own system that consistently makes OK QS sites and (SO FAR) stay that way. But to make money on adwords you need to be putting out many sites all the time, because you don't really know if it will be profitable until you test it on PPC. This is covered in the campaign blast method. But you don't want to waste too much time on any site that has not proven itself to be profitable.

[dolcevita]

I hard about a companie, but i cannot remeber the name ,that last year growing more as goole do in PPC, now i now way.

[hbsjcd3]

Originally Posted by ThomasW

Sorry - this is the article:

Google is cracking down on multiple industries they have deemed "Illegitimate." This guy isn't the only one BTW…
Below is a comment I got on the blog today. It's from Scott Phares, who is being told that Google considers the industry he's in to be illegitimate. He's not the first, believe me. Nor will he be the last.

He's in MLM. Those of you who know me know I'm no big fan of MLM. But that is totally irrelevant to the subject at hand. I have seen the same thing in totally unrelated industries, things that have nothing to do with affiliate marketing or business opportunities.

Where Google makes a sweeping judgment and sweeps a bunch of advertisers away. Businesses are suddenly DOA.


"Yep, you are right. Google definitely tightened the screws … already. I found out the hard way yesterday. All my PPC ads were disapproved or their Quality Score went so low they won’t ever display. I called an 800 number I have for Google and spoke with one of their adwords reps.

Google no longer considers network marketing, affiliate marketing and MLM businesses as “valid” businesses. As a result, they have disallowed all ads forwarding to affiliate links/sites, bridge pages that then forward to an affiliate site, and any site that contains or mirrors all or portions of a parent company site. Even my ads for my own personal biz site landing page and home business web sites went down.

They did not disapprove them, but they immediately lowered my Quality Score (from GREAT to POOR) so low that the ads never display. The adwords rep. also told me that to get my Quality Score back up, Google would have me increase my bid so high that it would kill my ROI completely. To all - be prepared, you may not see this happen until you edit an existing ad or create a new ad, then Goggle will review all your campaigns, that’s when all your MLM, home business and affiliate ads will drop.

I moved all mine to Yahoo last night until we all can come up with a solution to this. This is going to shut down every ad anyone has running on Google as an affiliate where you have registered a domain and have it forwarded to your affiliate links/sites. I am looking forward to your call on Monday at noon CST, hopefully you will have some suggestions as to a solution."

I recognize that there are some areas that generate lots of complaints, and Google is trying to provide a quality user experience. However this is NOT a trend any advertiser should be feeling good about. First it's anyone Google thinks is an affiliate… then it's an MLM guy… then it's someone who sells a hair growth formula… then it's YOU.

If you're saying to yourself, "Well I'm in a legitimate business, this could never happen to me," think again. By whose definition of legitimate?

Sleep with one eye open.

And don't go down without a fight.

And don't let Google be your only means of getting new customers.

And somebody please, tell Yahoo and MSN to get their friggin' act together. A mutual fund company that USED TO OWN $500 million of Yahoo stock couldn't get them to wake up, 3 years ago. But… maybe somebody else can.

If Google's the only game in town, then Google is Big Brother.

Perry Marshall

P.S.: Surely you've heard versions of the following quote - it applies here:

"They came for the Jews and I did not react because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the trade unions and I did not react because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the communists and I did not react because I was not a communist. Then they came for the social democrats and I did not react because I was not social democrat. Then they came for me and there was nobody left to defend me."

About the Author

Sounds like Google is trying to dig its own grave.......that is outrageous!

As if the economy wasn't going bad already!