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Reasons for google slap

by millionwq
5 replies
  • SEO
    • |
Anyone has any idea? I don't think they'll go around slapping people for no reasons
#google #reasons #slap
  • Profile picture of the author jakesellers
    Google seems to have a huge staff monitoring adwords. The main thing that kills QS (or triggers the review) is a low clickthrough rate. This indicates the ad is not relevant to the keywords chosen. Slaps seem to be triggered when the lander is a thin affiliate site, or a vague squeeze, or deceptive, overuses retention mechanisms (lightboxes/exit pops) and perhaps even if the site is just ugly.

    Things that help (but don't guarantee good QS) are SEO optimizations. Inbound links from good sites, outbound links to authority sites, keywords in site text, good text to tag ratio, little or no tiny or hidden content, sensible link structure, no parseable affiliate links. The best thing to do is to start with the narrowest exact match keyword groups you can, establish a good CTR and monitor your QS (if it goes below 7, it's probably a good idea to stop and start over) pass the initial manual reviews and scale up to broader matches.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jimerson Farveez
    "links to authority sites" - I am sure, google loves it, I had some outbound links to famous high PR article directories, So, when google updates PR, It gave PR2+ for that page...... It is just amazing
    Signature
    Search Engine Optimization Services in Delray Beach, FL
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  • Profile picture of the author whizkey
    Banned
    [DELETED]
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    • Profile picture of the author snapper
      Hi guys - I have been banging on about this all week as I was recently slapped because google deemed my pages to be a bridge page.

      I had about a dozen campaigns - all with good QS - heck some keywords actually had a 10/10, I had outbound links on some of the sites to places like wikipedia, had done all the normal seo stuff, the pages were clean.

      The bots were obviously happy - but when a human visited they obviously didn't agree with the bots.

      I got 2 different reasons for the slap from Google. 1 person advised me that the pages were bridge pages, which google advised goes against googles TOS. What are 'bridge pages'? Pages that bridge between an adwords ad and the merchants sales page.

      I would challenge any warrior to make money from adwords without a landing/bridge page apart from having a page specifically to gather searches details and not send them onto any offer otherwise it is a bridge page. Oh and the squeeze page must have unique content.

      The 2nd reason given was that my pages weren't very navigatable. Upon reading the email sent from this rep it seemed a lame excuse and didn't stack up. I believe the bridge page was the real reason for the slap.

      The other options I was advised I had were to have review pages that linked to 3 - 4 different companies or to direct link.

      I am the first to put my hand up and admit that my pages are bridge pages. I am an affiliate marketer...that is what I do/did. I was not doing any of that funny business now known on this forum as funny colored breaking wind that would otherwise get me slapped. I was merely gathering searchers to my site, pre-selling them and sending them to the merchant.

      I guess that the reason everyone is not up in arms about this is because it relies on humans visiting your site and making the deterimation. Who knows I may have copped a very zealous reviewer or google may be slowly removing landing pages from the scene.

      I just reckon that it could be a problem for lots of people but it is not happening quickly and therefore doesn't raise a whole lot of discussion.

      Then again I may be too much into conspiracy theories...only joking... but did man really walk on the moon?

      Regards,

      Steve

      PS - sorry if this sounds like 'poor me' or 'google are out to get me personally'. that is not what I am about - I think this will force me to build a better business - heck I will even start to build a list (just before the sky falls in) and start to do some marketing. It is just something that people that have landing pages need to be aware of.
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      • Profile picture of the author poolhall
        Google just slapped a number of my sites dropping ad quality from 10 to 1 overnight.

        One site which has about 10 pages, ranks number 1 in Google's organic SERPs with a sub page showing for the main keywords and is on the first page of the SERPs for most of the other keywords. I was told that Adwords and the regular search rankings are two different things. This site is primarily a bridge site. When I asked about it they "reviewed it" and sent me a link to their content guidelines. I can't find anything wrong except the bridge page.

        The second site has 80-90 pages of unique content. It has multiple offer pages which are primarily bridge pages, but they are all unique hightly relevant content with lots of user comments. I know this is a value added site as a I get about a 10% sign up for the newsletter and get thank you emails all the time.

        These two sites were in different accounts as well, so it's not an account thing. The thing they had in common was that they were bridge pages that linked to an affiliate offer.

        The only sites that seemed to escape the slap were either complete store fronts or review sites that reviewed 3-4 different purchasing options.

        It would be interesting to find out if there is some change in their policies that is behind this.
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        • Profile picture of the author snapper
          I am feeling for you Poolhall. Speaking with an adwords rep today and they advised that the bridge page policy had been in place for 12 months but it was starting to be enforced in the last little while.

          I have noticed that one of the niches that I am in has had a drastic reduction in adword ads showing, and it is only the merchants site that is running ads.

          I'll say it again...this is going to be a problem for affiliates who use adwords and have landing pages that link to merchants sales page. Have plan b ready.
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