Thin affiliates

Associate Programs Newsletter #263

Are you a “thin affiliate”?

If so, Google doesn't like you – and that's putting it mildly.

A journalist has discovered the facts in a confidential Google report.

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CONTENTS:

1. “Thin affiliates” are offensive, Google says
2. Video clips from Yanik's seminar
3. Thought for today: The secret of life

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1. “Thin affiliates” are offensive, Google says
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Journalist Henk van Ess has caused a flurry of excitement on blogs and forums.

In his blog he revealed that Google uses teams of humans all over the world to evaluate the accuracy of Google's search results.

These “international agents”, who are paid $10 to $20 an hour, were recruited mainly through universities. They're paid to check search results at Google every day.

Here's one forum where you can read about it:

https://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?threadid=6028

Don't be distracted by the debate over whether Google should be doing this.

Of course it should. It's just a form of quality control.

Google can use the evaluators' findings to tweak its algorithms and reduce search engine spam.

What affiliates need to pay careful attention to is Google's “Spam Recognition Guide for Raters”, which Henk revealed.

If you're a “thin affiliate”, beware.

Although the report is a year old, about 80% of its contents are still being used by Google's evaluators, Henk says.

The confidential document gives us an unvarnished look at Google's attitude to affiliates.

If you're using any of the “manipulative techniques” Google describes, this report will probabaly encourage you to take a hard look at your website.

I hope you're not silly enough to be using hidden links or hidden text. Not surprisingly, Google teaches its “raters” how to detect them.

Are you creating pages without much content with the aim of collecting pay-per-click (PPC) revenue? Google's raters are taught to mark such pages as “Offensive”, and gives examples.

Google secret guidelines spend some time discussing different ways in which some affiliates display results from pay-per-click search engines, so if you're doing that, you'll definitely want to study this report carefully.

Are you displaying ads disguised as search engine results? Google finds them offensive.

Are you adding a dmoz.org feed to your site with the aim of earning PPC revenue? That's “offensive”, too.

Google says:

“We differentiate between affiliates that produce extra service, value, or content, and those that simply are duplicates of other sites, set up to boost traffic to other sites and earn a commission for it. The former ones are not Offensive and should be rated on the merits to the query. The latter ones are Offensive…

“Thin affiliate doorways are sites that usher people to a number of Affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. A site certainly has the right to try to earn income; we're attempting to identify sites that do nothing but act as a commission-earning middleman.”

To Google, affiliate links such as qksrv.net, bfast.com and myaffiliateprogram.com – on the page or in redirects – “strongly suggest” that the site is a thin affiliate.

Are you using an affiliate datafeed? To Google, that's another warning sign.

However, if you offer a comparison of prices between different online merchants, you're OK, you're not a thin affiliate.

Google provides an incredibly tough guideline, which hundreds of thousands of affiliate sites fail to meet.

Google says:

“Do not call a page affiliate spam when an affiliation is only incidental to the message and purpose of a website. To determine whether participation in affiliate programs is central or incidental to the site's existence, ask yourself this question: Would this site remain a coherent whole if the pages leading to the affiliate (merchant) were taken away?”

That probably counts out most affiliate sites.

In summary, if you want to be friends with Google, make sure you provide extra value or content.

I've quoted only parts of the report. Any serious affiliate will want to study the whole thing carefully.

You can read the full report on Henk's blog here…

https://www.searchbistro.com/spamguide.doc

If the link doesn't work, go to https://www.searchbistro.com , find the June 5 entry and click on the “spam guide” link.

[UPDATE: It seems to have disappeared.]

Note: A Google employee broke a non-disclosure agreement by revealing this report. I don't know how long it will stay online. You may want to do what I did – put a copy of it on your hard drive.

Now we know what Google really thinks of affiliates. You've been warned.

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2. Video clips from Yanik's seminar
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If you missed out on Yanik Silver's much talked about, sold-out Underground Online Marketing Seminar, you'll want to grab this…

I don't know how he did it, but Yanik brought together a group of highly elusive, under-the-radar marketers, people who don't normally talk publicly about what they're doing.

The speakers combined bring in over $30 million selling everything from ebooks, advertising, real products, information, membership sites and affiliate products.

Seminar attendees paid up to $2,295 to listen to them. You won't see their secrets on the Internet because Yanik made each attendee sign a non-disclosure agreement.

For a limited time Yanik is allowing me to give away some uncensored video clips from the event.

In one video segment, you'll see Jeff Johnson.

“Jeff went from an absolute standstill to a CONSISTENT five figures a month on the Internet in less than 5 1/2 months after building his first site… just using free search engine traffic and only working every other day,” Yanik says.

“He's really mastered the hottest technology of RSS, blogs and datafeeds that had attendees falling all over themselves to find out what he's doing.”

Check this out before Yanik removes the video. Go there now:

[UPDATE: This offer sold out. Yanik now has a superb physical newsletter, Maverick Business Insider, which contains in-depth interviews with Maverick entrepreneurs. He launched it with a fantastic introductory offer – the first edition FREE. All you pay is postage and handling. Plus he's giving away his superb “34 Rules for Maverick Entreprenurs” book and other goodies. Here's my Maverick Business Insider review.]

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3. Thought for today: The secret of life
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” The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well.” – Hugh Walpole.

 

All the best

Allan Gardyne