Google AdWords Clobbers Affiliate Sellers

Age : 45 Joined : 08 Mar 2008 Posts : 1850

First, we must understand their point of view. Unlike some other
search engines, Google is committed to providing the best quality
search results possible. That is an admirable effort, and they are
certainly not setting out to do harm to their loyal advertisers who
bring them millions in ad revenue each month.

However, a new AdWords regulation will put a crimp on those
marketers who run ads using an affiliate URL as a landing page.

Google's reasoning is this.

For any keyword search, a good sized portion of AdWord results has,
at least until now, consisted of affiliate ads promoting identical
seller sites.

Here is an example.

Before the Holidays, this writer searched Google for the term
"chocolate." Of the ten AdWords listings returned on the first
page, three were affiliate ads promoting Dans.com, a chocolate
maker in Vermont USA. Another ad on the same page belonged to Dan
himself.

From Google's viewpoint, and mine as well, that was not a quality
search result.

Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it,
that won't be happening again. The new AdWords policy states that,
for any keyword search, when two or more ads are found that feed to
the same affiliate URL, only the ad with the highest popularity and
ranking will be displayed.

At the same time, the new AdWord policy cuts a bit of slack, in
that affiliate advertisers are no longer required to identify their
affiliate status in their ad text. But overall, it has dealt a
severe blow to thousands of affiliates, their market exposure, and
their potential for income.

So What's The Solution?

There are three things that can be done to regain that exposure.

1. - Optimize the existing ad according to AdWords standards and
hope you'll land the top ranking. That will be tough if you're
competing against ten or twenty other affiliates who are all doing
the same thing.

2. - Create a redirect page on your website that will feed to the
seller's page, and use that unique URL as a landing page for the
ad. The unique URL alone will successfully circumvent the new
AdWords affiliate policy. Still, this may be regarded as somewhat
sneaky or unethical.

3. - The best answer can be spelled out in just two words - Content
Pages.

To clarify, a content page is just a simple webpage, hosted on your
own website, that presents a short (500 words or less) report
relating to the product itself or to the related niche.

And of course, your affiliate link will be embedded into that
content, rather than being used as a direct link in your AdWords
ad. Once again, the unique URL for your content page will
effectively and legally get around the new affiliate policy.

Now, I'm a firm believer in content pages. They not only make your
site more important to your visitors and to the search engines,
they can (when well written and keyword relevant) help to pre-sell
the product. An informative content page can often make the
difference between a sale and a loss when there happens to be a
weak salesletter on the seller's website.

Another advantage ... you can embed multiple [related] affiliate
links into a single content page, giving your potential customers
several buying options to shop from.

Where Can You Get Content Pages?

It isn't as tough as it might sound. Here are two ways to go about
it.

1 - Write the content yourself. Stick to the topic and use relevant
keywords/keyphrases to tweak the reader's interest, and that of the
search engines as well. A personalized review of the product
usually works best, offering your own experience in using it, and
your resulting benefits. Then format the content as HTML, optimize
the page for search engines, upload it to your site, and use that
unique URL in your Google AdWordsTM campaign.

2 - Search for topic related pre-written articles at sites like
EzineArticles.com and place your affiliate link(s) in a short blurb
before and after the article itself.

Be aware that the terms of use on most public articles do not allow
you to edit the body of the article itself, or to omit the author's
resource box. Check to make sure you can effectively use the
article and still abide by all terms of use.