Google Slaps Affiliate Landing Pages

Posted on 31. Jul, 2009 by Logan in Traffic

Like many affiliates in the past few weeks, I got the Google slap on a few of my top running PPC campaigns which felt like getting my faced kicked repeatedly from Chuck Norris wearing a football cleat. Being a bit upset over losing a big part of my income I had to step back and look at things differently than I have lately.

One of my campaigns I completely understood the slap. I had put up a new campaign last week that consisted of just 3 pages that focused around one product in a review style site. Ok, I see why Google wouldn’t like that so much. What I didn’t understand was that my best campaign is a site that consisted of multiple pages of unique content, privacy policy, contact pages, real customer reviews and was well optimized for my keywords. In total there are about 20 pages on the site with fresh content being added regularly.

Being slapped for a site that I thought was in complete compliance with the policies was frustrating. I decided to email their support just to see what they said. I know it is pretty much a canned response, but it reveals a little more of what they want.

Thank you for your email. I understand that you are concerned about your keywords from the campaign ‘*****’ having a very low quality score, and I apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused you. I have looked into your account and find that your keywords have a low quality score due to a low landing page quality. I have explained this in more detail below.

When I looked into your website, I found that it is affected by a low landing page quality. Please know that this is happening because we noticed that whenever a user tries to perform a function on your site (like making a purchase, or getting more information), they are redirected to the website ‘******’. Please know that we do not encourage sites that exist for the sole purpose of getting around the affiliate landing page policy.

Your landing page quality needs to be improved if you’d like to increase your Quality Scores and lower your costs. Let me explain why we incorporate landing page quality into Quality Score:

Our market research shows that low quality sites lead to a poor user experience, and unhappy users are less likely to click on AdWords ads. High quality sites lead to better user experience and a higher return on investment for advertisers. I encourage you to visit http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=46675&hl=en_US for tips on improving landing page quality and increasing your Quality Score.

Learn how often Quality Scores are updated at http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=49063&hl=en_US.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at https://adwords.google.com/support, where you’ll find answers to many frequently asked questions. We look forward to providing you with the most effective advertising available.

This has definitely got my brain turning and trying to figure out where I need to go from here. While it has been rough, there are a few things I’ve taken away from this:

  1. DON’T put all your eggs in one basket. (I still have other successful campaigns elsewhere, but it would suck if I relied completely on Google). Try other PPC engines and other traffic sources such as media buys. Spread your campaigns out over multiple sources.
  2. Build quality sites. The days of single page landing sites are over. Focus on giving the customer a quality experience on your site. Give them what the merchant doesn’t give them. Create unique content that isn’t there just to take up space, but to satisfy your potential customer.
  3. Plan for change. Affiliate marketing changes so fast. The industry is very different today than it was just 6 months ago. What you are doing today might not work tomorrow. Make sure you are preparing your next move instead of being a “me to” type of affiliate.

How has the recent Google slaps been to your business?

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8 Responses to “Google Slaps Affiliate Landing Pages”

  1. Geno Prussakov

    31. Jul, 2009

    Sorry to hear this, Logan. Your conclusions are right on the money. The only thing I would add is Keep Educating Yourself Daily (to Plan for Change wisely, and react to things quickly).

    [Reply]

    Logan Reply:
    July 31st, 2009 at 8:00 pm

    Yes, educating daily is so important in this business since things change so quickly. Thanks Geno.

    [Reply]

  2. Eric Nagel

    31. Jul, 2009

    So far, no slaps for me (knocking on wood). My big site is about 20 pages as well, along with a 3-month old blog. For my main keyword, I rank #1 organically and 1-2 in AdWords. Doing everything I can to keep the big-G happy

    [Reply]

  3. Steve

    31. Jul, 2009

    I think one day Google will be forced to let advertisers have more flexibility cause their earnings will suffer and the money will be more important than quality scores.

    [Reply]

  4. Jason

    31. Jul, 2009

    Logan, I like your WooThemes wordpress theme. I’m sorry to hear about your slap but you’re right that you have to keep on your toes in this business. One suggestion is that you might try creating a sales funnel and walk your visitors through the sale before finally sending them to the merchant’s page. This should keep Google off your back.

    [Reply]

    Logan Reply:
    July 31st, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    Thanks Jason. I’m kind of bored with it already, but I get tired of themes too quickly. Creating a sales funnel definitely seems like a good idea. What I know is working for some others is to get users to enter email addresses first and create a list. Not sure how effective conversion rates would be for that, but I may try that as well.

    [Reply]

  5. Amit (Red_Virus)

    29. Sep, 2009

    Hi Logan,

    I had a slap on my site and it was back in 20 days and now ranking #3 for the primary keyphrase. I still believe on the linking theory that makes all the difference.

    [Reply]

  6. Bill Bailey

    17. Jun, 2010

    Yeah I had to laugh about the way you felt after the slap, I would call mine Depression. Still NOT over it

    I lost a $300 to 500 $ a day campaign (its still not back for me)
    Google have filtered my whole site in fact I had 2 sites that Just Dropped off the world,10 articles per site, Privacy disclosure, contact, Incoming Blog posts out going links to top site s in the niche, SEO Bomb proof still get Q S 1?

    I have lost 2 accounts with Google and I don’t want to lose another.

    I could Go On I have lots to say and Have learn t heaps

    In short this is the main Problem Its not the content although Google expect to see certain things, its where your site is pointing to (think about it if 1000 affiliates are pointing to the same weight loss Sales Page) Google Basically Is saying that its spamming their network and in the Long run they are right

    So you need to Take a name and email and work them from a list or go article marketing which can stack up $$$ for you and it takes time, There are no easy solutions at the Moment.

    I think I have a slap proof site Now but its harder to get the sales as you have to be 1-2 Page’s further from the sales page My split testing says that the Hop Rate (amount of people that actually make it thru to the sales page on the vendor site ) drops from 50% down to 25% and so do you sales which is the difference between profit and loss!

    Don’t Give in Its gotten easier in terms of competition as there is less its a matter of finding a way back in I am running a campaign on Google at the moment and getting 300 + ad clicks a day at and average cost of 6 US cents a click.

    So there is traffic on the Google network for your site Just make sure you have a testing account or two.

    Google also don’t seem to track credit cards So don’t be paranoid about setting multiple accounts up off the the one credit Card…

    Oh by the Way Google has the Best Buying traffic End of story Ive split tested and measured it over 10 ad networks

    Regards Bill Bailey

    [Reply]

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