Originally Posted by xenigo

I don't currently have anything in my TOS prohibiting specific PPC keyword bidding. But beginning tomorrow morning, I will.

I do believe Dirty D. should pay you for sales delivered thus far. I do believe he should have told you at the first instant that he determined his intention to not pay you for your future traffic. Proper communication is the only thing that prevents issues like this from occurring.

I made a few phone calls this evening to affiliate managers and program owners and asked the questions raised in this thread. The answers were "hell no I wouldn't pay for traffic generated by PPC on our own keywords... and besides, these are mentioned in our TOS." And the other answer is "it's your own fault if you aren't the top bidder for your own keywords. Google will sell the traffic to anyone."

Do I think it's right to buy the term "crackwhore confessions" to send the traffic to a site that already has the #1 result? No. It's similar to Costco paying you $50 for selling $39 / year memberships... bringing them traffic they wouldn't have otherwise had. But you go and set up a booth right outside Costco to sell memberships. They wouldn't allow this, and for good reason. You're not helping Costco by doing that, you're only helping yourself. It was already their traffic. If you did that outside Walmart, it might be a different story. Walmart still wouldn't allow it, though.

The other question asked was "do you own the traffic if the traffic is searching for your specific site on Google?" The answer is "Yes." Meaning you own it, but it's being delivered VIA Google. It's your brand. You're the one generating that interest in your brand, not Google. It's your hard work that went into building that loyalty. A strong percentage of surfers type in names of sites into Google instead of typing it as a URL.

But to those of you saying I shouldn't be listened to because of my Honda Civic... don't you think that's just a tad bit vein? Besides... I posted that pic like 5 years ago...