Forum Moderators: open
Most affiliates do not fit the criteria to get into Froogle. So, Froogle becomes a big retailer only club. I have a feeling that this will be an economic disaster for both companies that rely on affiliates to sell products and for small business sites that sell these products. Some companies that offer affiliate programs have upward of 10,000 affiliates. That's 10,000 small businesses!
What experience does the end user want? I've looked through Froogle. It's pretty cool if you know what you want. If not, it's page after page of mind numbing pictures and prices. It seems users would like to go to a site and peruse the products, descriptions and prices.
I don't know... I hope Google does.
Let's say that WidgetWorld.com, the market leader in widgets, offers widgets for $59.95 and has 1,000 affiliates selling its widgets at the same price.
Another merchant, WidgetPlanet.com, comes along and sells widgets for $49.95. Sounds good for the user, right?
BUT...the prospective buyer who searches on "widgets" in Google may never find WidgetPlanet.com's $49.95 widgets page because it's lost in the clutter of 1,001 pages that offer WidgetWorld widgets for $59.95.
Now, some participants in this forum might argue that WidgetPlanet is at fault because it lacks the SEO skills of WidgetWorld's superaffiliates. But from the consumer's point of view, Google isn't doing its job because WidgetPlanet's $49.95 widgets page is buried on page 9 of the SERPs. And to an economist, those 1,000 affiliate pages are anticompetitive because they inhibit the normal functioning of the free market.
Perhaps affiliate programs should be modified to let affiliates compete with each other on the basis of price (e.g., by accepting smaller commissions). That wouldn't be good for the affiliates, obviously, but the free market isn't about what's good for sellers--it's about what's good for the customer.
(Please note that I'm not advocating such a change--I'm an affiliate myself, and I'm not eager to earn lower commissions!)
What is more likely to happen is that it will continue to be more difficult every month to appear high in G's main index for heavily optimised or 100% commercial sites, of which a proportion are affiliates. Many affiliate sites depend on optimization as they have almost nothing else to differentiate themselves from others. They will fall. Other affiliate sites with substantive USP's and value-added will prevail.
There are 2 factors behind the difficulties in getting commerce sites ranked well in Google main index now - 1) PR and link popularity, together with other algo elements naturally favour information sites, and 2) Google are continuously improving in detecting sites that optimize to overcome the problems they have with #1.
These are not factors dedicated to affiliate sites alone - they are trends intended to decrease duplicate content and increase original and high quality informative content in their main index.
So Google will never have to make a decision to remove commerce sites per se from their index. Its a natural consequence of their ranking algos that many will be banned or penalised or degraded. But many, many commerce sites will remain, and many sites with afiliate links will remain, as long as they add value to the Google index.
On a final note, I know of many second/third tier search engines that seem to be made up almost 90% of "affiliate sites". That works for them obviously, but they have a different business model than Google.
Well, in theory people on the web should start linking to WidgetPlanet like "Hey, I found widgets for $49.95!" and then widgetplanet would become number 1 in the results.
The free market is about what is good for sellers by its very definitiion. A socialist market is supposed to be about what is good for consumers, but that hardly ever works.
A free market is about allowing all to compete on an even playing field. Some may make the playing field less even, but that is only a strategy used in the free market.
A free market is about competition with minimal government restrictions. If affiliates out perform competition, including the suppliers....then good for them. They competed on an initially level playing field and won.
Does Google have the right to interfere with the playing ground by introducing Froogle?....sure it does! It is for the affiliates to combat this obsticle if they consider it a threat.
A "free market" is about the survival of the fit, whoever they may represent.
I personally hold little long term hope in the survival of affiliates, but it will not be Froogle that kills most of them, it will be their partners.
Everyone hates salesmen (except salesmen). Everyone hates middlemen (except middlemen). Let's face it, these people represent the friction in economic theory - the reason why you cannot have perfect competition.
What google is attempting to do is to put all the information out there for free. I'm not surprised the affiliates are jumping up and down.
I find sites like dealtime.com and epinions to be the easiest way to shop. They compare the prices from different merchants, rate the products and have user reviews. You are not going to find that on a merchant site nor on Froogle.
Also, I find Lendingtree and cars.com to be useful as well.
To say no on likes the middleman is simply crazy. Retail stores online or offline are the middle man. If I go to the mall to buy sneakers I can go to Footlocker and check out Nike, Addidas, etc...Would it be better if there were only manufacturer’s stores? Is the difference who ships the product online? Who really cares?
If you are complaining about spam results in Google, that's one thing. To want to delist sites because they do not ship a product directly is silly. It really does sound like a lot of webmasters complaining "I'm being outranked by a site that is not as good as mine". The reason why many of the long standing top sites are in the position that you envy is because people find them useful and link to them. Maybe instead of complaining, you should try some business development with these high ranking sites.
Nearly all of the top online merchants utilize affiliate programs including; Ebay, Yahoo, Msn, Amazon, and just about every other major player. It is no longer a question of acceptance of affiliates- it is an Internet marketing standard.
I would expect that Google, as a public company, would not wish to exhibit a profile in any way hostile to commerce.
And it is all about competing for customers. Google is operating in a capatalist economic environment. Google won't risk trying to place itself in a different mold.
Competition for the customer's attention is best fostered by informed sales people, whether they work for the supplier or on behalf of the supplier as an agent/affiliate.
BTW, lawyers have long been dispised, and they're still around, at least in the US, and are thriving. And, so will people in sales, including affiliates. Get used to it.
obviously we have lot's of poeple on WebmasterWorld getting a high percentage or their entire income from running affiliate sites.
these are the poeple to defend the point that affiliate marketing will survive since they have an understandable stake on it. some of the comments are realistic some may also be wishful thinking.
imho we should all face the reality: we don't know exactly what the future will bring...so what could we do in this situation?...what about a three case scenario?
- worst case: affiliate marketing dies in two years
- best case: affiliate marketing won't be affected by froogle and other shopping-searchengines.
- average case: affiliate marketing will survive but will loose 50% of it's revenues.
(maybe there are better scenarios but this is not the point here)
let's discuss what can be the preparation to either one of these scenarios in order to have stable income on the long term.
we may also start a new discussion: "strategies to ensure long term income being an seo"
I think the top webmasters will still be able to earn more because they will control the google serps, but the other poor little lambs are off to the slaughter.
Europe
It definetly seems you are anti-affiliate, especially anti-any affiliate with higher rankings than you. My guess is there is some affiliate sites which are higher than you that you think shouldn't be and are waiting for Google to help you out, instead of doing the work to optimize yourself.
I'm certainly not anti-affiliate, because my site's revenues come primarily from affiliate sales.
IMHO, questioning other people's motives doesn't contribute to an intelligent discussion.
To want to delist sites because they do not ship a product directly is silly.
I don't think many people have suggested that Google will "delist" affiliate sites. See chiyo's post #93 for a more likely scenario. (BTW, I'd like to compliment chiyo for maintaining a level of intelligent, analytical discussion that the rest of us would do well to emulate.)
SlyOldDog wrote:
There are a few messages here asking why people don't like affiliates. I think the main reason is that when you, as a web user realise you bought something through an affiliate, you realise you gave away some money for nothing.
How so? That would be true only if merchants offered a discount to users who bought directly from them and not through affiliates.
Some users may not feel comfortable with affiliate sites, since they may believe--incorrectly--that they're giving their credit-card numbers to some guy who's running a business out of his basement. Others may be annoyed by having to dig through long lists of cookie-cutter affiliate pages on Google SERPs. But I don't think many users are under the impression that affiliates are marking up merchants' prices.
Go60Guy wrote:
Competition for the customer's attention is best fostered by informed sales people, whether they work for the supplier or on behalf of the supplier as an agent/affiliate.
IMHO, most affiliate sites should be compared to self-service retail businesses, not "informed sales people." There are affiliate sites that add value in the form of articles, tips, reviews, etc., and those are the sites are likely to prosper as Google becomes better at filtering out cookie-cutter affiliate content such as the boilerplate hotel pages that clutter travel SERPs.
let's discuss what can be the preparation to either one of these scenarios in order to have stable income on the long term.
1) Add value (i.e., informational content), or...
2) Buy PPC keywords and ads.
But don't expect that SEO alone will sustain an affiliate business.
I guess, in my affiliate ignorance I've been doing it right and may well have been ahead of my time.
IMO, SEO performed by affiliates who heed that requirement ought to find themselves surviving very nicely, thank you. Its certainly done wonders for me so far.
Competition for the customer's attention is best fostered by informed sales people, whether they work for the supplier or on behalf of the supplier as an agent/affiliate.
I will agree with you here, if you narrow the scope of your argument.
The most important part of the argument is the "informed" sales person, which in this case would be an informational site, or a site that gives you some sort of additional value, such as comparison shopping.
Sales people are generally also an annoyance to people who already know what they want to buy and have a price in mind. And the well informed sales person is even more annoying because they have an opinion that might be different than yours.
Froogle is for people who know exactly what they want to buy. If I want to buy a medium shiny blue widget with 2 bells and one whistle, then I do not want to have to deal with some punk kid when I walk into Wally's Widget World. I want to walk in, grab my widget, and walk to the register an pay. I don't want the kid to put his commission sticker on the box as I walk up, because he added no value to the process.
On the other hand, if I walk into a store and a sales person is honestly interested in spending time helping me figure out what I need, as opposed to what they want to sell, then I am quite happy to see them get their commission check.
This is just the travel agent argument all over again. When all you want is plane tickets to visit your family for the holidays, you know the dates and the destinations, and you have frequent flier miles with one airline, there is no need to go through a travel agent. In fact, the travel agent add another level of hassle. But if I am planning a tour, with 5 flights on 3 airlines, 17 hotels, 6 busses and 3 ferries, then I want the travel agent to help me out, and they earn their money!
As affiliates, you will porobably lose a percentage of those "easy sales". But the people that are making that purchase don't want you in the way anyway.
Add value and you will always be able to earn your money. Learn to adapt to the changing market and you will always be able to earn your money. Sit around whining that someone is taking away your free ride, and you are probably run a site that no one will miss.
I would actually bet that some of the better affiliates would find themselves doing much better if there was a weeding out of affiliate sites, and all the cookie cutter sites disappeared. There are some on this board that make big money with their affiliate sites who don't seem worriedat all. These are the ones that have taken this possibility into account long ago, and have backup plans. Learn from them.
Wow! And I thought supplying meaty informational content was an integral part of effective SEO all along.
Depends on your perspective, I guess. I tend to believe that SEO is what you do after you've created your "meaty informational content." (But then, I wouldn't consider the editorial department of THE NEW YORK TIMES as a support unit for the newspaper's promotion department, either.)
In any case, I think the percentage of pure affiliate sites that offer "meaty informational content" is quite small--at least in the categories that I follow. The few affiliate sites that do provide significant "added value" deserve to beat out the cookie-cutter sites that rank high solely because of questionable SEO tactics.
Affiliate sites should be measured and compared as any other site selling a product. Information on products should be made available, prices should be competitive through the affiliate partner, ordering should be easy, safe and quick. If these things don't happen the site will fail. No argument there.
Affiliate sites should make to the top of the serps much the same way as any other site, through SEO. Keep in mind I'm not saying "SPAM", cookie cutter technique's, etc..
I'm simply saying that not allowing affiliates to participate in Froogle may be the end of affiliates. Now before you freak out read on. This is only if Google decides to have an information index without commerce sites and a commerce only index. I don't think this is far fetched.
BigDave:
My point about JP Morgan and Bill Gates had to do with monopoly by forcing out competition, which is what happens when someone decides to "weed out" those business that they don't want to compete with.
Now, to tackle your rebut about sales people. Bill Gates "sold" IBM his OS, as a salesperson for his fledgling business, and then grew a company based on that sale. His business his in the business of sales. He made his billions in sales. The british royal family is not working the sales counter at Sears, but sears employ's hundreds of salespeople. Warren Buffet makes his money in sales and is one of the greatest salesmen that ever lived. He is able to sell people shares of a fund costing thousands per share. Musicians sell there skills, football players sell their talent, actors sell their abilities, lawyers sell their services, money managers sell people on their ability to make money, old wealth families probably owned businesses where they sold either products or services in order to accumulate wealth. The money didn't just appear one day. I think the only person who accepts your notion of what a salesperson is, is you.
<added>Salesperson is a specific job title. A CEO may sell, but he is not a salesperson.</added>
Someone is missing the point. A CEO must sell everyday to keep his position and his board happy. Bill Gates was the only salesperson micrsoft had when he sold his OS to IBM. A musician plays music, he/she must display the talent for playing music and must "SELL" that talent in order be paid for making music, etc..
My definition of a salesperson is anyone who sells anything to make money.
Let's drop it.....
Shopping, for them, frequently includes interaction with sales personnel. Its the relating and the experience that they find stimulating. And, you know what, these types frequently make purchases, too, when they find something they need or like.
If it weren't for this, the big chain stores wouldn't exist. I think the same ranges of behavior pore over into ecommerce. There are a plethora of shopping patterns. some people love to have their hand held. I know, since I've owned a bricks and mortar retail business.
As an affiliate, if you can do a good job of reaching a broader base of shoppers than the Big Dave's, you'll do well.
That is exactly my point. Affiliates will do well when they do their job. My argument is that froogle is not a tool for the shopper, it is a tool for the person who knows exaclty what they want.
I LIKE affiliates that do a good job. If someone writes an honest book review that convinces me that it is the book that I need, I will willingly click on their amazon link. There are also some NPOs that I support by always going through their affiliate links when I want to buy something at a specific retailer.
High quality affiliates will remain in the main google index, and the vast majority of people will still do their shopping with google instead of froogle.
You will only provide information on the products your wholesaler sells, right? So unless you cover every manufacturer in detail your site is providing an informational smokescreen to the reader.
I know I try to steer everyone who visits my site into buying my product even though they may be looking for something else. I am not an affiliate, but you get the idea. Affiliate sites will try to ram their product range down your throat too. Especially if they're paying for Adwords!
EuropeforVisitors - I think you know travel affiliates end up offering higher prices than you can get direct from the hotel. Unless you have buying power or a very high volume of customers which allows you to negotiate with the hotel, you will be forced to advertise the rack rates. Your commission comes from the hotel, but if I contact the hotel direct and ask nicely, I can nearly always get a better price than through an agent. With commissions of up to 30% are you surprised? You have nothing to fear from all this though. Froogle will not be allowing travel related content becuase it's not a commodity.
Affiliates are only useful when they provide unbiased and full coverage. However, almost by definition they are biased...
Not necessarily. A site like DPreviews or Steve's Digicams doesn't care if you buy a Nikon, a Minolta, or a Canon as long as you click on the camera merchant's affiliate link and buy something. And if I'm running bills-beer-books.com, I don't care if you buy "Me and My Bud: A Beer Drinker's Autobiography" or "Hamm's and Hams: Beer Bellies Meet Pork Bellies."
So unless you cover every manufacturer in detail your site is providing an informational smokescreen to the reader.
The NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW doesn't review every book, ROLLING STONE doesn't review every album, and TRAVEL & LEISURE doesn't write about every destination, cruise ship, or hotel. So why should an affiliate feel guilty for not covering everything?
I know I try to steer everyone who visits my site into buying my product even though they may be looking for something else. I am not an affiliate, but you get the idea.
From a search engine's perspective, "information" doesn't have to mean unbiased information. Canon's pages on PowerShot digital cameras aren't unbiased, Microsoft's pages on Office XP aren't unbiased, and Steinway's pages about Steinway pianos aren't unbiased. But they provide information that users are looking for, and they're likely to rank very well in Google.
EuropeforVisitors - I think you know travel affiliates end up offering higher prices than you can get direct from the hotel. Unless you have buying power or a very high volume of customers which allows you to negotiate with the hotel, you will be forced to advertise the rack rates.
That depends on whether the affiliate merchant is a straight booking engine or a consolidator. Anyway, some customers are looking for service, not the cheapest price. I list one fashionable 4-star hotel that doesn't pay commissions to my upscale booking partner, so the booking service states up front that it must charge a USD40 fee when making reservations on the customer's behalf. Yet the booking service gets a steady stream of inquiries and reservations for that hotel. I assume this is because my wealthier readers don't mind paying extra to have someone else negotiate hotel rates and room choices on their behalf.
(BTW, I also link directly to hotels' own sites wherever possible--something that a booking site wouldn't do! I'm sure I lose at least some affiliate commissions that way, but that's the price of maintaining editorial credibility and reader loyalty.)
No need to feel guilty. But if a SE comes up with a way of offering all the information in one place, the affiliate will no longer be providing value. Obvioulsy this is not what froogle is about (yet).
>Not necessarily. A site like DPreviews or Steve's Digicams doesn't care if you buy a Nikon, a Minolta, or a Canon as long as you click on the camera merchant's affiliate link and buy something. And if I'm running bills-beer-books.com, I don't care if you buy "Me and My Bud: A Beer Drinker's Autobiography" or "Hamm's and Hams: Beer Bellies Meet Pork Bellies."
That's true, but why would I click the link now if I know I will find it cheaper on Froogle? Maybe out of guilt or laziness...
>From a search engine's perspective, "information" doesn't have to mean unbiased information. Canon's pages on PowerShot digital cameras aren't unbiased, Microsoft's pages on Office XP aren't unbiased, and Steinway's pages about Steinway pianos aren't unbiased. But they provide information that users are looking for, and they're likely to rank very well in Google.
No, but biased information is not as good as unbiased unless it's in more detail. This is all a bit theoretical anyway. We know perfect information is only a textbook theory. My point was that an agregator like google may stand a better chance of putting ALL the information on your plate than a human editor. This is of course more possible in some areas than others.
> I assume this is because my wealthier readers don't mind paying extra to have someone else negotiate hotel rates and room choices on their behalf.
:) Nice one. I wish we could find such nice customers!
>(BTW, I also link directly to hotels' own sites wherever possible--something that a booking site wouldn't do! I'm sure I lose at least some affiliate commissions that way, but that's the price of maintaining editorial credibility and reader loyalty.)
All credit to you. That would have been my next argument if you suggested the Hotels cannot give a better deal. Perhaps if all affiliates offered phone numbers to the manufacturers to prove their independence I would be less sceptical about their role in the value chain.
SlyOldDog:
Isn't the value of a site what the user see's as valuable? If a user is searching for green widgets and his/her first search brings up what he/she is looking for, isn't that what a good SE does?
Let's say this site doesn't have in depth information on green widgets, but does have a link to the site that does. Is that of less value? The user found what they needed.
Now what if the user now purchases from the alternate site and the original site get's a commission for leading the user to the sale. If the price is the same or better than what is offered elsewhere, what's the problem?
I would say that a majority of potential online customers have a relatively short attention span. You don't want their eyes glazing over with information overload. If someone wants depth, no doubt they can find it. But far more buying decisions are made on impluse rather than at the end of a doctoral research project.
I think successful affiliates have found what triggers buying, and that buying decisions aren't the product of 30k in textual content. There's a craft involved here in providing just enough information in an interesting, readily comprehensible way and optimizing it so that the prospective purchaser is likely to find it through a search.
Let's hope Google is not planning on dumping commerce sites from the Google index.
