Sorry for another post that qualifies for the Rant category, but I saw this today in the ‘Google Adwords Editorial Guidelines’ page and it just bothered me…
Affiliate Policy
- We allow affiliates to use AdWords advertising. Please note that we’ll only display one ad for affiliates and parent companies sharing the same Display URL per search query. We also monitor and don’t allow the following:
- Redirect URLs: Ads that contain Display URLs that automatically redirect to the parent company.
- Bridge Pages: Ads for webpages that act as an intermediary, whose sole purpose is to link or redirect traffic to the parent company.
- Framing: Ads for webpages that replicate the look and feel of a parent site.
https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html
Why does Google try so hard to kill off affiliates? Honestly 95% of the ringtone affiliate landing pages out there are in violation of this policy, and it’s not just ringtones! Insurance, Dating, Heath, and just about any other affiliate program has affiliates sole purpose is to drive traffic to the their affiliate link. Quality score is another issue where they were after MFA (made for ads) sites but ended up hurting affiliate marketers in the process as well. Google says they are always trying to provide a positive user experience, so why do they target aff’s when our entire business model revolves around driving extremely targeted traffic and providing a very positive user experience? More so why are other type of sites like shopping.com not getting stung by Adwords so much? Shopping comparison is essentially the same thing.
I guess I’m just tired of Google walking on affiliates…
Google is getting tough with all the competiton lately. I think they’re trying to build up the war chest to fend off all the great little advertising companies that are on the rise. And in case Microsoft buys Yahoo.
wow, coop. Youhave been putting in some serious time over here! I like it! I will add your new blog to my list of daily reads. Have a good one!
Lol thanks Thor! Ya I’m really too busy to focus on two blogs right now and this one has my greater interest so i’ll focus on this one! also i may just get some other to write on the other one.
that has been part of their terms for a while obviously they dont strictly enforce it. Pepper jam CEO Kris is pushing Google as hard as he can to differentiate between MFA sites and CPA/affiliate Marketing sites but its an up hill battle that all affiliates should join in.
Ya, and let’s hope they don’t start enforcing alot… of course I wouldn’t doubt Goog wants a bigger slice of the money made in the affiliate market… so maybe there is some reasoning for targeting aff. marketers
oh and i agree… we should march on the Google Plex
Just stopped by and like what I’ve read so far. I regard to this article, at my day job, we bust people for doing this all of the time (it’s just our policy). Google must not be policing it very well.
So what’s you day job? and what exactly do yall bust people for?