There are a number of websites that review merhchant performance, and rate them. Its not unusual to see a merchant get a 1 rating on a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being the worse. I have seen this often, especially for little known electronics or camera dealers.
I have seen adwords ads for these same "dealers" who have reported by others to be little more than scamsters. Is there a policy that Google has with regards to refusing those ads? Thanks in advance for any insight.
Regards,
If Google used the reviews from some 3rd party site, who is presumably making money with the user reviews, to reject or approve merchants, they would open up a huge can of editorial red tape.
The only approved 3rd party review system that I'm aware of is SquareTrade for pharm companies/sites.
It's not G's job to police a sites credibility, that's for the Better Business Bureau and other consumer advocates.
One of the reasons I bought up the point was to draw a comparison to the "user experience" considerations that are driving the new affiliate policy. IMHO, the customer disastifaction of getting scammed by a merchant advertised in the #1 left hand slot on Google, will be a thousand times greater than being faced with redunatant affiliate ads to legitimate retailers on a page.
Google can chose to manage its editorial policies purely in its own discretion. I am just suggesting that this is a matter that is meaningful. Lots of websites with far less resources than Google have simple methods for users to provide feedback about merchants that advertise on that site. Google could also provide a tool to users for feedback, and not be involved in any editorial decisions at all. For a lot of retail products in the camera and electronics section I fear affiliate ads for legitimate retailers will be replaced by ads from questionable merchants. Just something to keep an eye on.
Regards,
I've been thinking along the same lines about the fact that the affiliates generally only work for reputable companies. Google has no interest in the activities of "real" merchants and their advertising.
That's acutally a good thing, the misleading ads and too-good-to-be-true ads are something that helps me a lot as an AdWords affiliate.
I've said here at least a couple of times that I prefer to be around position #4. The reason being that I am usually preceded by a site offering the product for free (if you sign up for an expensive service), a site promising the product for $1.00 or so (but not really when you click it), then maybe a useless E-bay search.
By the time they get to this honest old affiliate who offers the precise item that was searched on at the price stated in the AdWord ad, they're likely to be quite pleased.
Again, all this begs the question, if direct-to-merchant ads are such a detriment to the Google user experience, why do I get so many clicks and sales?
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Funny SquareTrade should come up too. I posted a warning in another forum the other day about how SquareTrade has become a badge of legitimacy for on-line pharmacy scams. Unlike the so-called "rogue" internet pharmacies who actually deliver and are banished from search results and paid ads (I won't argue that point though), a lot of the SquareTrade approved sites operate a little differently. They offer Rx drugs at an incredibly low price plus a $25.00 admin fee.
They then call your personal physician (whose # you need to provide) and ask the physician to write the Rx. Of course, 99.5% of the time, they either won't reach the physician or the physician wisely says "no" to these strangers. However, the scam gets to keep the $25.00 admin fee plus now that they have your CC and since you didn't uncheck a little box, you now will be billed $20.00 a month for an Rx newsletter.
Since the SquareTrade holder rarely issues an Rx to anyone, these places never violate the SquareTrade TOS. The "patient" would have to have the incredibly good fortune for these pharmacies to reach a harried or otherwise confused doctor. SquareTrade certified pharmacies are the only ones who can advertise now on any of the major search engines.
Of course a year ago, things were very different. You'd be reading a news article about someone who died of a drug OD and below would be a pair of AdSense ads offering "Get Vicodin Cheap Now!". I won't argue that that was appropriate either.
But boy, we affiliates are in the wrong game!
patient2all
