That's an instant winner if you see those pages at the top. I rank #1 in those every time.

Those listings are usually not optimized for the keyword, which is a good thing. They are 'general sites' and it is an indication that competition is fairly low for that keyword. I'd be much more worried about beating the EMD sites that are perfectly optimized. You beat them like you would any other site, good backlinks and unique onsite content.

You know it may be tricky to outrank larger sites with more authority in some cases. From my experience if you can get close enough, taking the time to have a proper title and description can still sway a searcher to clicking on a lower ranking result. This may be a good approach if you are having trouble trumping these bigger guys.

I'm willing to bet that almost everyone here on this Offline section makes more money than Angie's list.

Why? Because in 18 years, they've never turned a profit. Hell, I've built site's that were profitable in a few hours.

Ain't It Time To Say Goodbye To Angie's List? - Forbes

Not to mention... they charge companies $12,000 to $15,000 to actually move up a list into a better position.

I think it's criminal to burn through millions and millions of investor dollars, not turn a profit in 18 years, and yet LIVE like a millionaire on the investors' dime.

A L is a joke.

An unscrupulous contractor I was unfortunate enough to choose from A L, has several accounts on the consumer side, created just to knock the negatives off his profile.

He then boasts he is the top rated in the county.

Kick their butts, OP.

I have done this for years and like the man said, it's an instant winner. Let me add, such as it is.

First, it is a ton or work, and second, if you aren't really careful you'll earn the wrath of our friend Google.

But thirdly, Angies List. I put in a LOT of work to rank them and I have been very successful and have made a good bit of money from them over time. But..

About three months ago it started slowing down...and a couple of months ago it quit. Just stopped. So I went to take a look. Guess what? Angies itself offers an in house 40% coupon. That beats my piddly little 25% offer.

I contacted them. The support person just didn't get it. I explained nicely that I have always had the best relations with them and could they at least give me a matching coupon. I have always been able to work with them in the past. But not this time. Nope. They are going to beat the best you can get by 15 to 20 percent.

And while I'm at it, let me add that I showed them where some of MY competitors were offering up to 70% off! The support person gave me some kind of mumbo jumbo about how this was technically ok. Well bull crap. I explained back that it was a great example of bait and switch. They replied back that they had no intention of policing it. But they might contact some others with 40% coupons. Total clusterfarb. In translation, they had no intention of telling their top sellers to knock off deceptive practices because it was in some spreadsheet way explainable. Gimme a break! During the conversation I couldn't help but think if Angie herself knew about it she'd put a stop to it immediately. But it's not my job to go on a crusade.

You know, I don't have any problem with this. They can do whatever they want. What I do have a problem with is using all those affiliates out there who can in no way compete with the in house coupon to popularize their blamed company. If they want to have the best offer then let them step up and shut down the affiliate program. That would be the honorable thing to do.

So, I just took them down about five minutes ago and came here to see if anyone else had noticed this awful practice.

Frankly I really expected better from Angies. They have always been tops with affiliates. I don't sense anything nefarious here. More, it looks like a massive case of juvenile marketing ignorance and I couldn't do a thing to wise' em up. So I quit.

I could have done something snarky on my Angies pages, but I didn't. I just took them down.

It's their company and their choice. I just don't care for the way they are screwing over their affiliates with their vastly better offer. We can't compete. We shouldn't have to compete. It's nuts.

Do your due diligent research before going to a lot of work as an affiliate. Make sure you know who is on the other end too.

Norm