Infoproduct Vendors: How do you protect yourself from affiliates outranking you in Google?

I was just wondering what effect would have in my (or one's) brand if you don't appear on Page 1 of Google for your own ebook.

I'd rather have affiliates send traffic to the sales page that didn't originate from searching for the book itself in Google but for related items.

E.g. if my ebook is called "The Golfing Manual for Beginners", I'd rather have someone who reached the affiliate looking for "golf beginner" than for the book title itself (the book title only having, for example, 100 searches/month). When someone looks for the exact title of the book, I'm instead in the first result for Page 1. This would look better in a potential customer's eyes than if the first result for the ebook's title on Page 1 was "Is The Golfing Manual for Beginners a Scam?" (you know those linkbait titles).

Or that's what I was thinking

Thanks for stating that because I have mentioned it twice in this thread yet most people don't seem to read that the OP is about being outranked for the product name.

Google "truth about abs" and you'll see why I was asking this in the OP.

Thanks for replying Alexa, your replies are always ones I look forward to

Does CB allow you to accept or decline those affiliates interested in selling your products? Or can any affiliate sell a listed product in CB?

I actually tried to search the thread where I read John Romaine mention he had problems with affiliates in Clickbank, and I've asked him my question there. In any case, are there are precautions you (Alexa) or anybody else recommends to product vendors to take when first putting one's ebook on Clickbank/JVzoo/Bluesnap etc? Other than the obvious piracy issue (for that I'll get my ebook stamped).

For example, I've seen lots of affiliates use linkbait in sarch results by including the word "scam" in the title of even the domain!! Just to attract traffic and then sell the product which they associate in the title with a scam LOL

Really? And here I was trying to devise a "super pack" for affiliates consisting of banners, written articles (by myself) for them to use, podcasts etc LOL The ebook is very good (sent a few for people to review and they all loved it) and the sales page has gathered positive reviews too, but being a first time ebook vendor I think I may be overdoing it :confused:

I guess I could still use the banners for Google Adwords or media buys then.

As I said above, an affiliate should be someone bringing you in sales you could otherwise not get. So in the example above, yes, those retailers are reselling the products -- that's how that whole business works. Cisco and the like wouldn't be very strong without retailers selling their products.

What we are talking about though are those affiliates who are not adding sales you could otherwise not make but instead taking sales you would have otherwise made by outranking you in the search engines. They are of no advantage to your business and most of the videos they make are just crap -- I've seen plenty of them and certainly not the types of videos I want people seeing when searching for my product.

So those affiliates should (and do) get denied. They are just piggy backers trying to make a quick buck.

For whatever it's worth, I don't believe I've ever had that thought when doing a search. Usually I am just looking for information.

I don't see any difference in review type articles or videos ranking high on search engines any different than any other traffic source. You describe it as "generating no value", but I think it does actually generate some value. Especially if it is a good review.

People who have good reviews generally not only rank by a video and a few seo tricks, but they also have a social media following, bought the product and tested it themselves, answered a few questions that the sales page might have left unanswered that might block the sale, and even shared a case study of what kind of results they have got etc. So he helped someone give the final little bit of push he needed to make the buying decision. Who might have decided otherwise if he did not read a good review first.

And if you think you can just pay someone $50 and outrank them, please, just do that. Then you won't have that problem. Do the youtube video and Wordpress blog with 10 articles on them and rank for your own product keyword yourself.

You just cannot limit the affiliates in any method they choose to promote your product. The person who outranks you today, and you decline as an affiliate, may as well promote someone else's product, or spread negative reviews about your product. And tomorrow, he can also use another method to bring you some other traffic from some other source.

For example, after the recent changes on Google algorithms, importance of social signals increased, and many SEO people are now also focusing on building a social network, a group of "followers" in their niche, etc.

OR do not get into any affiliate program at all. If you are focused on Branding, and have deep pockets, like $5-10 Million per year budget on your advertising campaigns, maybe branding will work better, and affiliates will get in the way.

But if you are low-budget start up that needs affiliates and does not have a few millions lying around to pay for branding, do not even make a big deal out of it. Some will outrank you. Some will use other methods. Consider every affiliate effort "added value", not just the ones which are not focused on product name rankings.

The least value that youtube video uploader saves you is a $50 you did not pay to the outsourced talent for the Wordpress blog and probably did not rank as well. Probably for every 1 person you see outranking you, there are 10 who try and fail, so probably you are seeing at least $500 you saved, if you tried to rank for that keyword on your own.

I'm kind of in the middle on this. On the one hand, yeah I agree they are not high quality affiliates. They just want to stand in front of the cash register.

On the other hand, they can bump up your gravity and get you more visibility in the marketplace.

I think if you're doing business on ClickBank this is just part of the drama you'll put up with to have access to all those affiliates.