AdWordsAdvisor - 5:29 pm on Jan 13, 2005 (gmt 0)

There has to be a little more to it than that, maybe you were disapproved for one of the more traditional reasons.... I can't see their reviewers suddenly becoming web design judges. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Patient2all, it is not so much beauty that is needed, as value to the users who have clicked on the ads. The review team will not be paying any attention at all to the design of the page. It is what the page says that matters.

Just changed all my direct links to landing page links and it is proving harder to get ads approved now than it was even only six months ago when I first had the wording approved.

Esllou, I assure you, the Editorial Guidelines are the same for all advertisers, affiliate or not. When the policy change is implemented, yes, landing pages will be looked at with a keen eye towards making sure they are providing value to the users. But, I kid you not, affiliates will not be subject to special scrutiny on the Editorial Guidelines.

they are not accepting: - 'B/W' for Black and White - 'see "city" at its best' due to word best! - '+' as subsitute for "and"

As mentioned by patient2all, these are not new disapproval reasons.

using their ToS wording, they already have the power to stop all affiliate sites NOW! Not only direct, but landing page affiliate sites too...at a stroke. maybe this has always been their plan....they only intended to be explicit about the "one direct per search" part of it.

I don't know if anyone will take my word for it, but I hope so. No, there is not a secret plan to stop affiliate advertising. The intent is to improve our user's experience, so that they will continue to trust AdWords ads, and click on them. For a very long time to come. Of course a trusted advertising program is better for Google than one that is ignored. Equally, it is better for advertisers as well.

I would be fine with that if they were holding others to the same level.

I think you will find this to be the case, toddb.

I agree but they have opened a pandora's box with the sentence "may not be a bridge page with the sole purpose of driving traffic to another site" who decides that? very subjective and they could clamp down on 90% of "affiliate" pages out there at a stroke.

Well, it will be the Editorial Review team, and they will be looking for landing pages that provide value to users. They will not be looking to 'clamp down' - they will be looking to make sure that a good experience is provided for our users.

As far as people using example.com/dvds when that was not part of actual destination URL, I've been seeing people doing that for some time and thought it was a violation of TOS. I asked AWA a question about that in another thread yesterday, but can't find it now among the mess.

Patient2all, in most cases that would have been approvable, and still will be, so long as the domain of the Display Url matched the domain of the landing page. Every single ad is reviewed by an actual human being, and handled on a case-by-case basis. So an informed judgment is made in each case.

So, do we have a real issue of harassment of affiliates suddenly or are these just routine rejections is the question?

Again, I am not sure that everyone will take my word for it, since I work at Google. But I assure you, the answer is routine rejections, and not harassment.

I doubt if affiliates have anything to worry about if they honestly try to comply with the rule instead of just knocking out what even they admit are "crappy landing pages."

Agreed. And europeforvisitors, thank you for your many insightful comments, whether positive or negative, regarding this policy change.

As I mentioned before, I'll do my best to keep my eye on these threads today, and respond as often as I am able.

AWA