Does Google Hate Affiliates

43 replies
Does Google Hate Affiliates or is it just me?
What do you think?
#affiliates #google #hate #regster
  • Profile picture of the author danr62
    Google hates websites that don't provide value and are difficult to navigate.

    Stop worrying about Google and just do your best to serve the needs of your target audience (you do have one, don't you?) and getting your valuable information in front of as many eyes as you can, whether that's through social marketing, guest posting, article syndication, video marketing, or whatever else floats your boat.

    Other than SEO. SEO is a side benefit to doing the other stuff right.
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  • Profile picture of the author sonicadam123
    Google doesn't hate affiliates, they hate anyone who uses black hat, buys links or uses shady tactics - keyword stuffing, cookie stuffing etc.

    It appears that they hate affiliates because some affiliates use some of tactics .. but not all.
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    • Profile picture of the author kevinzeo
      Originally Posted by sonicadam123 View Post

      Google doesn't hate affiliates, they hate anyone who uses black hat, buys links or uses shady tactics - keyword stuffing, cookie stuffing etc.

      It appears that they hate affiliates because some affiliates use some of tactics .. but not all.
      Yes,MR G hates anyone who uses black hat, buys links and no value content.
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    Originally Posted by reggiebr View Post

    Does Google Hate Affiliates or is it just me?
    What do you think?
    No. Google does not hate affiliates. They hate low quality crap content which is what most affiliates put out. I'm an affiliate and Google clearly does not hate me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Frank Donovan
    Originally Posted by reggiebr View Post

    Does Google Hate Affiliates or is it just me?
    Can't speak for Google, but why do you hate affiliates? :confused:
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    • Profile picture of the author reggiebr
      I don't hate affiliates. I've been doing my best to be a successful one. But it seems to me the thing in the way is Google. The big Gorilla in the room.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marketer Matt
    Depends on who you listen to. If you listen to Aaron Wall over at SEOBook, he seems to be convinced that Google is out to smash affiliates even if they are providing good quality information and value. SEOmoz swings the other way preaching quality content and link building.

    I've basically concluded that the best thing to do is to brand myself as much as possible while focusing on quality content like danr62 said and promote that content everywhere my target is, not just Gogole
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  • Profile picture of the author NXmarketeer
    Affiliates try to monetize their pages, Google tries to monetize all the pages and have revenue of it... it is only logical that some antagonism exists between affiliates and google.
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    • Profile picture of the author silyavski
      Originally Posted by NXmarketeer View Post

      Affiliates try to monetize their pages, Google tries to monetize all the pages and have revenue of it... it is only logical that some antagonism exists between affiliates and google.

      some algorithmism for sure exists
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  • Profile picture of the author Suzzithe1
    I think it does hate affiliates because most affiliates don't produce free quality content, and that reduces google's income via adwords hehe...
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    • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
      Originally Posted by Suzzithe1 View Post

      I think it does hate affiliates because most affiliates don't produce free quality content, and that reduces google's income via adwords hehe...
      What? How does that even make sense?? What does "free" "quality" content from affiliates have to do with their AdWords program???
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  • Profile picture of the author ymest
    Google HATES spammers and so should we! That's one of the downside of the Internet, I guess! However, there are rewards when you put out great, original, informative content! Google can be your friend or your enemy! But ultimately, Google shouldn't be the ONE to please- it should be your readers, buyers, customers! Stay clear from all these "Google talks" and just concentrate on delivering extra value! Things improved drastically for me the day I let The Google Myth go...So to speak...

    Best regards,

    Yoan
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
    I'll answer your other post here. I don't think anyone is touchy. I think you asked a question and people are answering you. I'm not sure how that can be construed as "touchy".
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  • Profile picture of the author elexmedia
    No Google doesn't hate affiliates. Google hates landing page with poor contents on it.

    If you are an affiliate and you promote website/ landing page with rich contents, that visitors are looking for, Google will approve you and give you huge traffic.

    Just put rich, high quality contents on your site and Google will become your friend. They do not look at affiliates status, they look at the contents.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ewan Lumsden
    Banned
    They dislike people that make websites JUST to get money and don't contain anything else valuable to the user. They want good quality sites with articles etc... They don't mind if your an affiliate too.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by reggiebr View Post

      Does Google Hate Affiliates or is it just me?
      What do you think?
      Didn't you hear Matt Cutts the other day? He confirmed that it's just you that Google hates...:rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author TomYevsikov
    Google has nothing against affiliates, google loves value and this is what they trying to provide.
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  • Profile picture of the author elexmedia
    Originally Posted by TomYevsikov View Post

    Google has nothing against affiliates, google loves value and this is what they trying to provide.
    Yes, you can promote Amazon Affiliate Website until CPA offers, with Google. You just need to fill the landing page with valuable, relevant contents that the Google users are looking for. Google is still open for affiliates who give rich contents to people.
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  • Profile picture of the author James Foster
    They hate the lame promotional sites that a lot of affiliates use.
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  • Profile picture of the author cjreynolds
    Originally Posted by reggiebr View Post

    Does Google Hate Affiliates or is it just me?
    What do you think?
    Yes - they just hate you... personally.
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    I just added this sig so I can refer to it in my posts...

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    • Profile picture of the author kindsvater
      Google hates affiliates and have said so in their own company documents.

      According to Google's leaked and confidential website reviewer guidelines:
      "A thin affiliate is a website that earns money from affiliate commissions. It exists only to make money."
      Some people try to spin this and say Google only hates "thin" affiliate sites. The problem is Google says a "thin" site is one that has affiliate links.
      "Thin Affiliates: Spammers make money when a transaction is completed after the user has clicked through to the merchant's site from their webpages."
      By definition purchases are not made on an affiliate site, so all affiliate sites are spammy thin affiliate sites Google calls "web spam."


      I have websites where I have made one change - and that was eliminating the affiliate links. That had an immediate and significant benefit to their rankings.

      But, if you don't believe it that's your business. Create your sites and linking as you see fit.

      .
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by kindsvater View Post

        Google hates affiliates and have said so in their own company documents.

        According to Google's leaked and confidential website reviewer guidelines:
        "A thin affiliate is a website that earns money from affiliate commissions. It exists only to make money."
        Some people try to spin this and say Google only hates "thin" affiliate sites. The problem is Google says a "thin" site is one that has affiliate links.
        "Thin Affiliates: Spammers make money when a transaction is completed after the user has clicked through to the merchant's site from their webpages."
        By definition purchases are not made on an affiliate site, so all affiliate sites are spammy thin affiliate sites Google calls "web spam."


        I have websites where I have made one change - and that was eliminating the affiliate links. That had an immediate and significant benefit to their rankings.

        But, if you don't believe it that's your business. Create your sites and linking as you see fit.

        .
        Both of your quotes reference "thin affiliates". That is clearly an issue for google and I don't think anyone is disagreeing with that.
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  • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
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    • Profile picture of the author marketingabc
      Banned
      [DELETED]
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      • Profile picture of the author wolfmmiii
        Originally Posted by marketingabc View Post

        Google hates the little man making money, so yes, google hates affiliates. Profits should only be for the already rich you see, that's how our society is built.
        Oh stop already. You sound ridiculous. I make a full-time income as an Amazon affiliate from 100% organic traffic. I'm definitely not a big player. This is the same for countless others.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ryan3
    Google sure hates me, after the panda update it sent me back so many pages i cant even find it.
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  • Profile picture of the author clever7
    The truth is that Google’s last algorithm changes based on linkbuilding are favorable to powerful websites that can follow their rules. The Penguin update doesn’t care about the content like the Panda updates.

    Now Google is disregarding original content if a website doesn’t have link variety. The powerful websites are able to have this link power, but simple affiliates cannot manage to have all these links.








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  • Profile picture of the author elexmedia
    As a result, sites featuring mainly content from affiliate networks can suffer in Google's search rankings, because they do not have unique content that differentiates them from other sites on the web.

    Google believes that pure affiliate websites do not provide additional value for web users, especially if they are part of a program that distributes its content to several hundred affiliates. Because a search result could return multiple sites, all with the same content, they create a frustrating user experience.
    Google hates pure affiliate websites, where all affiliates use the same contents all around the internet. Therefor, you can't do direct linking or use landing page that the affiliate vendors provide for their affiliates. Everybody is using it, so it isn't unique anymore and doesn't give value anymore.

    You still could promote affiliate website through Google, but you must create the contents by yourself, a rich, unique, and relevant contents. Not using contents that everybody has been used.

    As long as your affiliate websites provide rich, valuable, unique, relevant contents, Google will accept it.

    If you participate in an affiliate program, there are a number of steps you can take to help your site stand out and to help improve your rankings.
    • Affiliate program content should form only a small part of the content of your site.
    • When selecting an affiliate program, choose a product category appropriate for your intended audience. The more targeted the affiliate program is to your site's content, the more value it will add and the more likely you will be to rank better in Google's search results and make money from the program. For example, a well-maintained site about hiking in the Alps could consider an affiliate partnership with a supplier who sells hiking books rather than office supplies.
    • Use your website to build community among your users. This will help build a loyal readership, and can also create a source of information on the subject you are writing about. For example, discussion forums, user reviews, and blogs all offer unique content and provide value to users.
    • Keep your content updated and relevant. Fresh, on-topic information increases the likelihood that your content will be crawled by Googlebot and clicked on by us
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    • Profile picture of the author seosoldier
      Originally Posted by elexmedia View Post

      Google hates pure affiliate websites, where all affiliates use the same contents all around the internet. Therefor, you can't do direct linking or use landing page that the affiliate vendors provide for their affiliates. Everybody is using it, so it isn't unique anymore and doesn't give value anymore.

      You still could promote affiliate website through Google, but you must create the contents by yourself, a rich, unique, and relevant contents. Not using contents that everybody has been used.

      As long as your affiliate websites provide rich, valuable, unique, relevant contents, Google will accept it.
      You wrote, "Google hates pure affiliate websites, where all affiliates use the same contents all around the internet. Therefor, you can't do direct linking or use landing page that the affiliate vendors provide for their affiliates. Everybody is using it, so it isn't unique anymore and doesn't give value anymore."

      Don't take this personally but I can prove this isn't true, at least I can show you this in my niche. I have not done extensive research but I HAVE seen a lot of examples, and will be happy to show you an example in my niche.

      Landing pages that are all the same, from various affiliates, all ranking first page on google while my multi-page informative site was banished from p1 to page 20, now inching back and up to page 4...
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      > My Promise To You: I will never promote any offer I do not truly believe to be 100% worth buying and using!
      https://bestwaterfilter.us
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  • Profile picture of the author seosoldier
    Google does no9t hate affiliates, nor does Google hate spammy sites - or at least if they do, they are not showing it.

    Check out this result from google as I was looking up keywords tools. Now, this is NOT atypical, in fact it's very typical of results I'm seeing in Google since the Penguin update . Lousy sites are on the 1st page and good sites are banished, in many many cases.

    Check out this jpg:
    Attachment 13883

    Now in case the jpg is not visible what it shows is that this site , keyword-tools dot info is #1 above many much better sites for the keyword "keyword tools info".

    Now, take a look at that site. It's pure web spam. Poorly written, pretty much entirely an ad for web tools affiliate sales. And make sure to check out the page "Articles & Videoes" [sic] at the top of the page!

    That's right, blank pages, poorly written "articles" and pure affiliate sales (though curiously it seems the links have been removed).

    So this is what Google wants??????
    It's shameful actually. So many good sites were punished by Penguin and yet this crap is #1!
    Again, if this were an anomaly I would say "okay" but I've seen tons of examples of exactly this kind of crap site being rewarded post-penguin.

    Apparently Matt Putz and his team are smoking crack.
    I can't wait to see Google go DOWN. And they will with these kind of search results. :p
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    > My Promise To You: I will never promote any offer I do not truly believe to be 100% worth buying and using!
    https://bestwaterfilter.us
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  • Profile picture of the author samkap
    Google hates junk and getting taken advantage of
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  • Profile picture of the author MaggieDavid
    No google does not hate Affiliates hate is a big word! What Googles dislikes and is trying to stamp out, are sites that offer nothing of value to anyone.

    In fact I dislike going to site that offers nothing but affiliate links. If you want to do yourself a favour, make your site VALUABLE to anyone who searches. Make your content worth reading and make it YOURS not some rehashed crap that you get over and over again, on other sites.

    It is easy, Black or white. That is what Google is about. All this Hoo Haa about Google, and trying to trick Google, etc is rubbish. Give the searching Public what they want, and make your site a site of value, then you will always have heaps of traffic and money in your pocket.

    If you feel you have hit by Googles latest Panda and Penguin, it is not the end of the world, there is a way to get back your rank, just PM me.
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  • Profile picture of the author kelcrow
    For every article you write pertaining to your affiliate website your adding value to your site.
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  • Profile picture of the author dmister
    Google likes high quality, interesting, established, authority sites which people share. Most/nearly all affiliates do not provide this.

    Therefore, Google dislikes most affiliates.
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    dmister

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  • Profile picture of the author oniram
    I don't think that Google hates affiliates. When you do a search for a new IM product launch to see if it's a winner or a looser the first ones on page one of Google search are the affiliate review sites hawking the new product
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  • Profile picture of the author faisalmaximus
    Yes and no. If your site is full of affiliate adds and no real or effective materials then google will not like it (should not like also). On the other hand, site with good content and valued to people is liked by Google. So, affiliate link is not the only issue.
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  • Profile picture of the author silyavski
    If i was working for the big G, in a month i would clean the search result from sh$t like this.

    i believe they don't like to totally clean the results. why? because if the results were clean who would pay them. then the person will own the web, not the robots.

    How i would do it:
    1. Scan the pages for original content and remove from results any page with ,more than 3% of duplicate content with other webs. The 3 percent i leave for copy paste some manufacturer product data. so if i find 0%=original , 0-3% tagged for checking if its commercial. more than 3% bam, send right away to PR 400000
    2.Will make tags for every type of page and make everybody state- blog, affiliate blog, etc. and then make policy for every one of them

    and many more ideas...

    Guys, you have to be happy that i don't work for them, otherwise my update would be known as the Hitler update
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    • Profile picture of the author cjreynolds
      All these Pandas and Penguins... Way too tame!

      We need a 'Panther' update! A 'Grizzly' update!

      How 'bout a 'Tasmanian Devil' update? Something with big sharp teeth!
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      I just added this sig so I can refer to it in my posts...

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      • Profile picture of the author silyavski
        If we knew the name of the next update, we could make some quick cash :-), so stop fiddling here and lets read the complete encyclopedia of animals to see if we can figure the name...
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by silyavski View Post

      If i was working for the big G, in a month i would clean the search result from sh like this.

      i believe they don't like to totally clean the results. why? because if the results were clean who would pay them. then the person will own the web, not the robots.

      How i would do it:
      1. Scan the pages for original content and remove from results any page with ,more than 3% of duplicate content with other webs. The 3 percent i leave for copy paste some manufacturer product data. so if i find 0%=original , 0-3% tagged for checking if its commercial. more than 3% bam, send right away to PR 400000
      2.Will make tags for every type of page and make everybody state- blog, affiliate blog, etc. and then make policy for every one of them

      and many more ideas...

      Guys, you have to be happy that i don't work for them, otherwise my update would be known as the Hitler update
      Missed your meds again?

      You're going to do all this, manually, in a month, for the hundreds of millions of web pages out there?

      Good luck with that...:rolleyes:
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  • Profile picture of the author silyavski
    have you ever seen the head to wash dishes, its done by the hands, the head tells the hands what to do.
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      Originally Posted by silyavski View Post

      have you ever seen the head to wash dishes, its done by the hands, the head tells the hands what to do.
      Fair enough.

      Official Google Blog: We knew the web was big...

      You are going to need one heck of a lot of hands to wash those dishes.
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  • Profile picture of the author bodiddley
    Google hates Affiliates who have thin *landing pages*. The quality, original content referred to in this thread needs to be on the landing page itself, not just on other pages within the website. Important distinction.
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