There will be only one ad displayed per serach query per domain.
The ad with the highest Ad Rank will be displayed.
This means affiliates and merchants will compete against each other for positioning.
You no longer have to identify yourself as an affiliate.
Google will not change the ad text, you must do this manually.
If you use a unique URL for your landing page, you will not be affected by this change.
Google will display only ONE AFFILIATE per search or
will display only ONE AD per affiliate?
Thanks
if you search for "blue widgets"
now you have ads by:
1. blue-widgets-mega.com?aff=123
2. blue-widgets-maga.com?aff=234
3. ma-and-pa.com
4. johns-widgets.net
5. blue-widgets-mega.com?aff=345
6. e-widgets.com?aff=8887
7. e-widgets.com?aff=41234
8. lonesome-widgets.com
after the change you will get
1. blue-widgets-mega.com?aff=123
2. ma-and-pa.com
3. johns-widgets.net
4. e-widgets.com?aff=8887
5. lonesome-widgets.com
6. cheapo-widgets.com
7. five-cents-widgets.com
the two blue widget affiliate mega site, blue-widgets-mega.com and e-widgets now only have one of their affiliates each....allowing space for the two new ads, cheapo and five-cents-widgets.com
is that clearer?
then, if you search for "blue widget", that is a new search and we start all over again with the same process.
[edited by: esllou at 1:41 am (utc) on Jan. 11, 2005]
"In January 2005, Google will incorporate a new affiliate advertising policy that is designed to provide a better user and advertiser experience."In January 2005? When in January 2005? How can Google be so flippant and cavalier about a change to the system that will all but destroy direct to merchant advertising on AdWords and with it a great many livelihoods?
This is not nearly enough warning to plan for contingency for such a drastic change. An absolute bare minimum would be one month's warning, not a matter of days.
And their response:
<email quote removed>
You couldn't make it up.
[edited by: eWhisper at 3:26 am (utc) on Jan. 11, 2005]
[edit reason] TOS #9 No email quotes [/edit]
I read all posts and the email and it's still not clear to me.
Scuba,
The reason why it is not clear to you is because it is not clear :)
As I posted elsewhere, the magnitude of this change deserves at the very least a big .pdf, not a scant email. So many unanswered questions, even the starting date can't seem to be nailed down!
This trying to pick the more credible lines out of this post or that in order to re-think a marketing strategy is irksome and inefficient.
Even though this is designed to eliminate small affiliates in favor of big businesses and their advertising agencies, if you want to create a concise definition based on what we know so far, leave the word "affiliate" out out of it.
www.example.com - can only show once for a single search query by a user. As many ads as before can be shown, but the domain portion must be unique on each one.
Don't make any difference if the example.com ad is placed by an affiliate or the example company itself, they'll only be one ad showing with that URL per user search. Of course, it's likely that deep pockets, lower margin "example, inc." itself will be able to outbid any affiliate who tries to use that URL.
Things got confused because much of the so-called warning that went back and forth on this board for weeks kept referring to the "merchant and the highest bidding affiliate" when that was clearly speculation (like much of the information in the AdWords forum.
That's my take on it so far anyway.
-----
And Christh:
When I read your email, I honestly thought it was me who wrote it. It expresses my sentiments exactly and is even phrased the way I write.
BTW, I'm not accusing you of plagiarism, I think it's more a matter of great minds thinking alike :)
---------
Also, BTW, where is that other clear headed and to the point poster, PPCbidder? You'd think he'd be posting on this and throwing out a lot of relevant questions and ideas. Miss you, where ever you are!
less patient2all than ever
Why not - it is central to the debate?
The least they COULD do is throw us a bone or two.
patient2all
[clickz.com...]
Significantly Salar Kamangar, director of product management at Google, indicates different pages within the same domain will not compete with each other.
So www.example.com/aff1 & www.example.com/aff2 will not compete with each other although they both belong to www.example.com
Still no answer on the Unique Domain vs Unique URL question from AWA.Why not - it is central to the debate?
Did this answer it?
[webmasterworld.com ] Message 42
That post simply adds to the confusion because it refers to domains while the policy refers to URL.
Domain!= URL.
However, from my previous post above, the Google product director indicates that sub pages within a domain will not compete with each other.
Quote:
"Advertisers will still be allowed to link to sub-pages within a site, where appropriate. There could be an ad that points to an eBay search for an item as well as an eBay store that sells that item, Kamangar said."
Which seems to contradict the information given by AWA in Msg 42.
More confusing still.
Clarification required.
This will surely make conversions rates drop. Even if you have a great site, there is no way it will drive more conversions to an amazon sale, then if you linked directly to amazon. Just because a lot of users will click on your ad, get to you site and just close it, before ever clicking to get to amazon.
Google is already taking steps to ending affiliates from advertising on Google. When do you think they will put a stop for good?
Example- Ban affiliate landing pages...
I think it will happen in the next 5 years. I think Overture will ban them as well.
We can't advertise on adwords, and our pages don't get listed on the natural searches because it's considered "duplicate" content.
How so? If you have unique landing pages, there's no reason why you can't use AdWords and be listed on Google's SERPs.
We can't advertise on adwords, and our pages don't get listed on the natural searches because it's considered "duplicate" content.
How so? If you have unique landing pages, there's no reason why you can't use AdWords and be listed on Google's SERPs.
Yeah, but to make decent $$$ you will have to create hundereds or thousands of landing pages for hundreds or thousands of products.
Using scripts that generate stores doesn't work anymore, cause they don't get listed on SERPS. That happened to 5 sites of mine.
You have to create hundreds of pages of content (preferably unique)which then directs users to the merchant.
The problem for a lot of affiliates is going to be-
-- They are way behind other sites which have been doing this/listed in google for years. Combine this with Googles dislike of new sites-(sandbox).
With purists insisting one must have a webpage with content to another sales driven direct links to merchant.
Neither one is grander than the other, but it all boils down to driving sales & earning revenue, respectably.
For direct to merchant link guys why not just have half a dozen accounts each sending to different merchants. You could easily saturate the listings.
If you have a landing page with a dozen merchants on it offering the same product, then that is less revenue for Google Adwords.
If you prefer arbitrage send it to a price comparison site and get paid per click...i dunno someone like dealtime or kelkoo.
imho, I think just having one url is too radical which is a very dismissive attitude by Google to peoples concerns and their livelihoods.
Maybe limiting to two per page or at worst one per page. But not one per search.
Yet what gripes me is by labeling it an affiliate policy clearly indicates what Googles attitude is towards affiliates.....not very politically correct...then you can always vote with your feet and look at alternatives to adsense because the cross over of affiliate advertisers & adsense affiliates is probably quite high.
Q. Does Adsense offer quality content? The spin suggests it does.
I really hope any spin from Google does not start resembling that from Overture, which is one of the reasons why we stopped using Overture.
This all may envoke the rise of a new search engine, with a lot of opportunity for existing ones...or...some advertisers may be seduced & turn to the dark side and start promoting on spyware out of desperation.
For direct to merchant link guys why not just have half a dozen accounts each sending to different merchants. You could easily saturate the listings.
Qui,
Do you mean opening 1/2 dozen or so AdWords accounts? I thought Google doesn't like that and I'm not sure how that would help.
If that's not what you meant could you please elaborate a bit? Everything you've suggested in this thread up until now made sense and I don't want to miss out on this gem due to my thickness :)
Also, everything else you've said in this post is what I've been thinking and hits the nail right on the head :)
patient2all
Personal inference from posts seems to suggest there are two divided camps which defines what an affiliate actually is or what the role of an affiliate should be.
With purists insisting one must have a webpage with content to another sales driven direct links to merchant.
The question isn't what affiliates are or what their role should be, but how Google wants its ads to be used. Google gets to make that decision, so why turn this into a debate between two divided camps?
Yet what gripes me is by labeling it an affiliate policy clearly indicates what Googles attitude is towards affiliates.....not very politically correct...then you can always vote with your feet and look at alternatives to adsense because the cross over of affiliate advertisers & adsense affiliates is probably quite high.
Until the alternatives pay better than AdSense does, I don't think you'll hear the pitter-patter of many departing feet. :-)
Do you mean opening 1/2 dozen or so AdWords accounts? I thought Google doesn't like that and I'm not sure how that would help.
You can have as many accounts as you want as long as you don't have an ad with the same keyword pointing to the same URL in both accounts. I think QJG's point was you could have landingpage1.com/brand1, landingpage2.com/brand2 etc. all for the same keyword and dominate the ad space (correct me if I'm wrong).
I've just read this post again for the first time since the announcement, not a huge amount of info on it except people feeling hard done by. I agree the short notice was cruel and the vague email wasn't adequate. However, I think it's about time we all cracked on with building sites that add real value to the consumer, direct > merchant was easy days, now there's a new challenge. Makes for a very interesting year, good work Google I say.
landingpage1.com/brand1, landingpage2.com/brand2 etc. all for the same keyword and dominate the ad space
Shaka,
Thanks for the clarification. Actually, that's what I've always done.
However, I think it's about time we all cracked on with building sites that add real value to the consumer, direct > merchant was easy days, now there's a new challenge.
We've also been doing that for years. Right now, this PC is refreshing this thread every few minutes while my wife and I work on yet another high content sales site yet. Like most affiliates, we assess each opportunity and act accordingly. Almost every affiliate that I correspond with uses a combination of direct to merchant and landing pages. Again, the decision is all based on the amount of selling effort (convincing?) that is needed to make a sale. Last I heard, there was nothing wrong with that in market economies. Why must needless impediments be thrown directly into the path of successful, honest salespersonship?
Sometimes we decide that both the consumer and ourselves are better served with a site offering many product choices with an article or other information written by my wife on the subject at hand.
Other times, there isn't much to say except "widgets are on sale for $99.00, all colors, all sizes". That too serves the consumer since that's all they care about. It does no one any good to expound on the virtues of these $99.00 widgets further. THAT would be spamming. They want one, they click. They don't, the ad goes away after a week. The consumer doesn't need to read redundant presell info thrown in just for the sake of satisfying an arbitrary requirement.
If some of the fraudulant merchant ads, misleading merchant ads and affiliate ads that "guess" at the searcher's intent through overuse of dynamic insertion could be eliminated, I don't see why so many are making the concept of direct-to-merchant out to be inherently evil and bad for consumers.
Google is wiping out a community in order to remove some abusers who should be dealt with on a case by case basis. I thought that's what the approval process was all about.
patient2all
A lot of us are tired of seeing affiliates taking all the blame for whatever perceived ruin has befallen AdWords.
In fact, if you tell us some more you can become, I believe, an actual "member" with 2 more posts :)
(Just felt we needed a little levity at this somewhat tense point, Todd)
patient2all
www.domain.com ¦ domain.com ¦ domain.com/blah
I know the advertisers are concerned about this but as a publisher, I eagarly await this "feature". Right now I can only dream of having less obvious repetition which turns off visitors from ever seriously considering clicking.
By the way what prevents an affliate from just buying their own domain and forwarding it to the vendor site with their aff code? Is Google going to test where the domains resolve automatically or are they going to wait for human review?
PS cool I am a member. I hope they don't take it away after I goofed and announced the change had taken effect a few days ago.
shaka1978, explained it well, especially if you promote several strong merchants dealing in the same product. By having several accounts allows this (one for each merchant doing ppc>merchant), rather than a single account & having only one ad show for a specfic keyword. Keeping on top of repeated keywords in different accounts was always time consuming, this is one advantage of the new policy which will keep on top of it.
Hi europeforvisitors,
I was trying to elaborate how differing the opinions were with regard to ppc > merchant or ppc > affiliate site > merchant....when looking through the threads recently...and how it keeps getting brought up when neither is the devil's work...I won't bother quoting anyone as it's plain to see..especially when the final objective is basically the same.
I will maintain that this has not been handled well by Google, and if there is a divided camp then I think it's the attitude towards affiliates by some ppc search engines & a number of agencies who are not as proficient in the ad space who throw toys out of their cots & promise the earth in ad spend.
There are affiliates here who spend more than these agencies., yet the agencies get a designated manager or agency account (when we were informed to qualify to be assessed your spend needed to be about £3000 per month), not that this matters..but a number of agencies get a kick back from Google as a % of their clients ad spend..which is more competition for affiliates...Would you call that a level playing field when working on your ROI margins...No.
Google may turnaround they are trying to resolve this, but how do you knwo they are not just saying what you want to hear.
At the end of the day we'll (personally) be alright jack.
Being successful as a direct-to-merchant machine proves that you do at least some part of it better than others and better than some of your merchants. And gives you a track record of producing.
Why not become an AdWords professional and approach your previous merchants and ask them to allow you to run some campaigns for them? Surely they're missing your previous revenue and therefore have the need. It wasn't the merchants who minded you being there in duplicate - they paid you to do it. And you've already got the deep keyword lists and the ability to create and manage decent CTR ads.
Google's going to need to add in some compartmentalization or hierarchy to the My Client Center to make it work - to allow a merchant to hire you to just see and manage individual campaigns or ad groups so that you're an outsourced resource to the merchant, with skills needed to bring in the revenue that they're now missing.
As a specialist, I suspect in time, you could be assigned their entire AdWords management if you're producing results for them with a portion. It's been my experience that most (not all!) do not have specialists running AdWords inhouse - and they are more set-and-forget'ish than the successful direct-to-merchant affiliates who've honed their skills sufficiently to make money on fairly slim commissions.
Merchants should already have budgeted funds in their ad departments that they were used to paying you as an outsider to grab more sales for them. Find a way to reallocate them back to you by providing the same time and skills you did before.
Won't be easy. But neither was AdWords direct-to-merchant when you first started.
[clickz.com...]
Google's Kamangar is reported as saying:
"Advertisers will still be allowed to link to sub-pages within a site, where appropriate. There could be an ad that points to an eBay search for an item as well as an eBay store that sells that item, Kamangar said."
Now I wonder about this possible (actual) situation:
Books by {Keyword}
Get them all here
Lots of discount for you
www.example.com/books
Anyone's 2¢ will be very helpful!
[edited by: eWhisper at 3:02 pm (utc) on Jan. 12, 2005]
[edit reason] Please use example.com for sample links. [/edit]
