Adwords to ban affiliates?

Just in case you don't frequent the adwords forum

[hannamyluv]

If any of you use adwords to promote your merchants, here is something you may want to read.

[webmasterworld.com...]

Oh, and if you ingnore the repetative (and yet strangely uninformative ;) ) posts from a certain member (you'll know, trust me) it is actually a pretty interesting read.

[eyeinthesky]

Thanks for the heads up, hannamyluv :) That was an interesting read.

Basically, according to AWA's post, Google will "not completely block" affiliates, as of now.

Could that mean a partial block? Like requiring a landing page (as in OV) and not linked directly to merchant site.

That would be fair and maybe even good news for some of us...

[hannamyluv]

I wouldn't mind the landing page, so much. I already do half my stuff that way and there are creative ways to make up the loss in conversion rate.

I do think that some of the merchants will be upset if they do go to a landing page though. The smart ones anyway. Since G no longer sorts out the trademark issues, affiliates are the only way that some merchants have to defend their trademark.

[growingdigital]

Since G no longer sorts out the trademark issues

I know Google said this, but believe it or not, I have stumbled on a handful of banned trademark terms. When you go to post the ad, it gives you a great big red warning about it.

I think there are a handful of companies out there that have threatened G enough that they don't feel it's worth the headache.

[jcoronella]

Back from the conference, and from the folks I've talked to there seems to be a lot of truth in this. How it will be implemented seems to still be under discussion, but it will be probably not be an outright ban, but a restriction on having too many repeated listings in one SERP.

As much as I'll miss the easy money, they really need to do this for their users.

(I'm closing this thread, lets move discussion to the orgional here: [webmasterworld.com...]