Anyone else seen this and why would this be when everything is relevant? BTW I don't use analytics or anything else to allow any tracking of conversions from their side, but I can tell you the kw's that got bumped up high were converting.
With respect to your direct linking to merchant sites from AdWords via affiliate links (even those that go through a redirect on a different domain name, first), that's been prohibited by Google's terms for quite a while now. I've tried it in the past, and even if they allowed the redirect for a while, they'd always just kill the ads by way of Disapproved status with "Inaccurate Display URL" listed as the reason. I'm not sure how you can continue to use Direct-To-Merchant (DTM) techniques with AdWords.
eBay USA just prevented their affiliates from using their display URL however.. A lot of other merchants don't allow it either.
I have two sites basically that use API information..
Google doesn't hate all affiliates...they just hate the ones that add no value. [google.com...] says:
"There is no problem in being an affiliate as long as you create some added value for your users and produce valuable content that gives a user a reason to visit your site."
That page is for ranking in the organic results, but I'm sure they use a similar philosophy for paid ads. One of the problems, of course, is that we have to deal with Google's definition of "value".
I really think it is the outgoing links they don't like..
They don't like pages with tons of outgoing links..
BTW some of my other affiliate sites were hand-written and they died too..
I'm going to mask the outgoing URLs and we'll see how that does..
[edited by: Rehan at 9:36 pm (utc) on June 8, 2007]
Also, my comparison shopping site was just too well put together and too valuable of a consumer resource for a human to slap it..
In the worst case scenario .. If some human didn't like your site and they slapped it, just reg a new domain, upload and resubmit.. It will be quite a while before another human gets around to manually critiquing your site.. It seems very unlikely humans are involved in this. Adwords is pitifully understaffed.. It takes weeks upon weeks in certain countries just to get an ad group reviewed..
I found a few pages on my site that only have links to amazon.de, not quelle.de or more importantly ebay.de.. They are still rolling strong in Adwords.. Every page that has a link to ebay.de or quelle.de requires $10 min bid..
The question now is why do they like amazon.de but not ebay.de? Maybe it isn't amazon.de in particular but the fact that without ebay.de and quelle.de results there are only MINIMAL outgoing affiliate links..
Too many outgoing affiliate links and you are toasted..
Another one got hit too but was not doing much anyways. Another one was not changed at all.
I am not really sure I have a grasp on why either. I don't think any of my landing pages have direct affiliate links on them.
1. domain extension is irrelevant (mine are .co.uk and .de)
2. adsense is irrelevant (some sites had adsense others didn't)
So on my basic two types of sites, when I send the visitor to another domain to buy, I'm getting severly penalized ( a new affiliate "penalty"), but if I have a another party's lead form on my domain, I didn't get hit.
Is it time to get affiliate programs to allow it's affiliates to use xml or something else so that it appears that the buying page is on the affiliates site?
I still enjoy reading about all the quitters, more money for me!
:)
[adwords.blogspot.com...]
Basically if you create a landing page with no unique content and the sole purpose of sending visitors to another site, then AdWords will penalise you.
[edited by: jatar_k at 4:30 pm (utc) on June 9, 2007]
[edit reason] no urls thanks [/edit]
On the landing page there is the product, the picture, and the buy button that goes to the buy page of the merchant.
There is also a contact form and 2 adsense boxes on top and on bottom.
Then there are other 3 products from the same category to choose from.
Geez, I thought *that* stopped working about a year ago...
Didn't Google already make changes that eliminated most affiliate landing pages?
In any case, what is it that you offer on your site that isn't provided at the merchant itself? I don't see any added value from what you have described.
Surely you don't consider the adsense boxes and "other 3 products" to be "added value"?
As a consumer, I want to see them improve quality further, but don't have much hope.
Yesterday, I turned off my ad filtering briefly, because I wanted to see Adwords ads in two categories. In both cases, Adwords utterly failed to show me what I was looking for.
In one case, I was looking for a specific, specialized kind of Bluetooth accessory. Most of the ads displayed were for Bluetooth headsets for cell phones, which was NOT what I was looking for. My search terms were very specific, but Google broadened it to include stuff I have no interest in. (I already have a Bluetooth headset for my cell phone - why would I want another one?)
In the other case, I was interested in a hotel room in a specific part of a city. Thanks but no thanks for the hotel rooms everywhere else!
Whether this was due to advertisers being able to trump the user's wishes by over-bidding, and/or stuffing with inappropriate keywords, or a failure of Google's algorithms, I dunno.
I turned my ad filtering back on.
With respect to your direct linking to merchant sites from AdWords via affiliate links (even those that go through a redirect on a different domain name, first), that's been prohibited by Google's terms for quite a while now. I've tried it in the past, and even if they allowed the redirect for a while, they'd always just kill the ads by way of Disapproved status with "Inaccurate Display URL" listed as the reason. I'm not sure how you can continue to use Direct-To-Merchant (DTM) techniques with AdWords.
They want the display URL's domain name to match the merchant's domain name. That is the one and only approved way to do DTM.
They don't want multiple ads for the same merchant appearing on the same page. They don't want you fooling consumers into thinking they are seeing ads from 10 different merchants, when, in fact, all of them redirect to the same merchant.
Just set the display URL to the merchant, and there is no problem. Well, other than that you will now have to duke it out with everybody else doing the same thing, since Google will only display one such ad on a page.
