David Adams over at CPA-Affiliates.com blogged this morning about a Google Adwords Quality Score update that occurred this weekend.
Evidentally, the Quality Score Update at least partially targeted affiliate marketers.
Remember, Google’s Quality Score determines both how much a given advertiser pays for a particular keyword listing and the relative position of that advertisement. In some cases, an advertiser in the #1 or #2 position may pay less than an advertiser in the #5 or #6 position because they have a higher “Quality Score.”
In general, Google has been known to “unfairly” attach a low quality score to an advertiser (especially affiliate marketers), which can result in that advertiser having to pay as much as $10 per click for a keyword placement that may cost another advertiser with a high quality score only 35 cents or less.
Affiliate marketers who use search-engine marketing to drive traffic and make money on a pay-for-performance basis are called search arbitragers.
I love search arbitrage.
In fact, it’s the basis of all proft made from paid search. It can be argued that anyone who uses paid search to make a profit is a search arbitrager.
Search arbitrage is when you buy keywords in an effort to “sell” those keywords for more money than you bought them for.
Simple, right? Yes.
Affiliate marketers buy keywords and either direct-link by sending the traffic directly to their merchant partner using an affiliate tracking link, or simply send the traffic to a landing page designed by the arbitrager to stand as a conduit between the search-engine (i.e., Google) and the merchant partner.
If the affiliate can spend less on paid search than they receive in commission the difference is the arbitragers profit.
Super affiliate search arbitragers (top 1%) make millions of dollars in commission per month, while successful affiliate search arbitragers (next 4%) can easily make tens-of-thousands per month profit.
SENDING TRAFFIC TO A CONDUIT LANDING PAGE:
Herein lies the problem between affiliate search arbitragers and the Google Adwords Quality Score Algorithm.
There is debate whether Google automatically targets known affiliate marketers with a low quality score. In many instances I believe this is the case.
However, the real question is why are landing page affiliate arbitragers being pushed out of business?
Well, at least partially, it’s because affiliate marketers don’t build landing pages that Google likes. Here are the top five (5) reasons why I believe Google dislikes affiliate landing pages:
(1) “Thin” Content
(2) Duplicate Content
(3) Heavy Affiliate Links without links to other internal pages without heavy affiliate links
(4) Non-masked affiliate links
(5) Freshness of Content
THIN CONTENT:
I’ve participated on various panels with Google and time and time again they site “Thin Content” as one of the primary reasons affiliates get hit with low quality scores. Thin content can be defined as a destination page (aka, landing page / destination URL) with little or no valuable content. In other words, the Google user does not benefit in any meaningful way from ending up on the destination page. In the good old days (prior to Google’s Quality Score) affiliate marketers only needed to demonstrate relatively high click-through rates (relative to other advertisers) in order to gain top placement. Those days are gone. Despite this, affiliate marketers continue to build destination pages that are thin on content.
Here are a few tips for getting around thin content issues.
- Offer users coupons
- Add a section called “what’s hot” and profile specific hot products
- Add Top 10 Reasons to Shop or Top 5 Reasons to Buy this Product
- Add Reviews (expert or consumer)
- Add User Ratings
- Build Websites around specific topics (i.e., dog breeds) and offer original content around that topic(s). Blogs work well here - Wordpress is Free.
DUPLICATE CONTENT:
In general, affiliate marketing search arbitragers tend to have minimal patience and as a result lack long-term business models. Too many affiliate marketers talk about “getting rich quick” and creating businesses that can spin quick cash, but lack long-term prospects. I believe this attitude has led to affiliate marketing search arbitragers being labeled negatively by Google (and the community) and thus the collateral damage that has occurred as a result (i.e., affiliate marketers getting slapped with low quality scores regardless of content or “quality” issues).
Avoiding duplicate content issues is easy, but it’s time consuming. While it’s easier to simply copy and paste content from other pages onto your destination page it’s a short term fix. If you are a good writer and have the time, draft your own content - be creative and build meaningful content. The real test is whether it provides value to the end user - don’t cut corners….draft quality content and you should be on your way to a higher quality score, regardless if you have affiliate links on your website or not.
HEAVY AFFILIATE LINKS:
Heavy affiliate links without links to other internal pages without heavy affiliate links appears to result in low Google Adwords quality scores. While there is debate whether just masking the affiliate tracking URL works (see below), the truth is that most affiliate landing pages include nothing but tracking links without any value to the user.
Try building a website around a topic (i.e., the environment, animals, rave parties, etc.) and adding meaningful content. For instance, you may create an entertainment content website that covers top reality TV shows like “Dancing with the Stars” or “American Idol.” Talk about all the juicy gossip that’s going on and figure out a way of building traffic and then turning that traffic into commissions. Of course, supplement that natural organic traffic with some pay-per-click advertising and you should be off to the races.
In short, Google seems to penalize affiliates who have destination pages with nothing more than affiliate links. Build real content and link to it or simply link within your website to where the user can find meaningful content.
NON-MASKED AFFILIATE LINKS:
You should always mask your affiliate links. If you don’t know how there is a solid how-to mask affiliate URL’s over at WebMasterWorld using Mod Rewrite.
In general, there is no guarantee that masking your affiliate URL’s will result in a higher Google Adwords Quality Score; however, there is enough anecdotal evidence out there to suggest it may help.
If nothing else, it will take Google’s systems longer to figure out that you’re nothing more than a affiliate marketing search arbitrager….in case they hold that against you!
FRESHNESS OF CONTENT:
The freshness of content issue applies to anyone and everyone interested in high organic ranking. However, it is likely that Google also uses the freshness of your content to determine Quality Score.
Freshness of content tends to be ignored by affiliate marketers because once again it is time consuming. Think about it - if you are managing 10,000 landing pages how difficult is it to maintain fresh content on all of them? Difficult, right? Yes and no.
For starters, you should have a content management system that provides flexibility when quickly updating content.
Secondly, you should use some advanced strategies, such as using RSS feeds and content syndication networks to keep your content fresh.
For the blackhats among you there are a number of novel methods for randomly “refreshing” content such as rotating paragraphs, header or closer sentences, etc., but most of those methods are short-term, shortsighted solutions.
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Media Coverage of Pepperjam / Doubleclick Partnership
. ANYWAY, This week we have shot from a special location at the Pepperplex, it is actually not to well known to many people.
