Google Guidelines Define Affiliate Sites as Spam
 

Specifically "thin" affiliate sites:


5.1 Thin Affiliates

A thin affiliate is a website that earns money from affiliate commissions. It exists only to make money. The spammer shows content from other ?real? merchant sites, such as Amazon or eBay, or a good hotel or travel website. When users click on links to buy products or make reservations, they are redirected to the ?real? merchant page.

The thin affiliate offers no additional information and does not try to help users. This is a moneymaking spam technique. [SOURCE] Page 105

Do any affiliates here plan to change their site strategy based on these guidelines?



.

wouldn't that apply to googles adwords as well?

Of course not because that is spam that makes google money..Google is ok with leeching everyone else s content to make money on, but if you leech from google in return it's different rules apparently.

#OccupyGoogle

you really think they will keep it a level playing field?

already have :winkwink:

wouldn't that be an anti-trust issue? Even on a national level i can imagine it would irk a few people.. but at an international level couldn't that actually cause tensions?

Google Adsense, YES :1orglaugh:1orglaugh

I think this goes back to when they banned the made for adsense sites. they are trying to get rid of the actual spam with no content or no value to the user.

if you have a review site, im sure its not the same

Google can put anything in their rules..its their site..

I notice more and more people I meet saying that Google is becoming really "poor". These are regular internet users.

The market is opening up for new engines. Google is rapidly becoming a place where spammers and content thieves get to the top.

I guess time will tell.

google is top notch for search, if you dont like it, use Bing and yahoo :D

it makes google's search engine sound like spam by their own definition. they are just displaying others content in their search results.

That's kind a funny since i am sure almost all websites exist to make money,having a good content is just subproduct

5.1.1 Recognizing Thin Affiliates

To help determine if a page is a thin affiliate, you can do the following:

• Click buttons on the page. Click on a ?More Information? or ?Make a Purchase? button. If you are taken to a merchant on a different domain, it is probably a thin affiliate. You will not be able to make the purchase on the affiliate webpage.
  
  
• Check properties of images on the page. Right-click on an image on the page with your mouse and look at ?Properties? to see where the image originates. Check to see if the address of the image is the same as the address of the page or if it is the address of a ?real? merchant? Look for original content on the page. Affiliate pages that include original content in addition to the affiliate link are not spam
  
  
• Look at the domain registrants. If clicking a button takes you to another page, check to see ?who is? the registrant (or owner) of the two domains. If the registrant is the same, the page is not a thin affiliate. Please follow the instructions for checking whose in Section 3.3.1.

[source] Page 105

They are not the only one's....

:2 cents:

There is no money in SEO.

It's about time to shut down the Google.

It seems that you are frustrated

always seen this as a potential 'red flag' and have stayed away from using sponsor feeds partially because of this

sure hope they don't use this logic in the algo (i think they said it doesn't factor in...?)

The quality of their results went downhill when they stopped showing results for what users were looking for and started returning results for what Google thinks the user was looking for.

If using RSS make sure to 'cache' (copy) the images to your server :)

Do these reviewers get access to google resources, meaning they can check private whois data also?

Btw according this info they just want to wipe out the copy&paste affiliates.. so you are good to go if you have unique content..

:thumbsup

yeah they've been the largest image thief forever, lol google.

Affiliate pages that include original content in addition to the affiliate link are not spam - that sentence is the most important.


However, current google serps shows a lot of spam pages and that whole Panda update is ridiculous

Is "defining" an affiliate site the same as Google saying they are going to rank it lower?

Sounds more like they are targeting the equivalent of a banner farm. Not a site like FreeOnes that offers so much more like bios, forums, etc.

I understand that sites that mainly use promotools (banners, iframes, white labels etc) are spam...

sites that actually add something to users, have unique quality content that also makes sense should be ok....

the problem could be...the thin red line... so in some cases you have to lucky that your site is labeled as "useful"

In the meantime I see my "useful" sites drop and my "spam" sites emerge??? That doesn't make sense now does it???

there's a WP plugin for that too, people :thumbsup

RSS Feed plugins usually have the option for caching images.

This is talking about pages with markov text and some images, usually hotlinked, that are just there to get Google bot to give them an automatic position... Then a manual reviewer comes in and sees that the page has no unique review information... no story or nothing...

Private WHOIS records are only available to you, your registrar and anyone who pries that info from your registrar via legal means, such as court order or lawyer intimidation. If your WHOIS data was public before you chose to go private and someone cached that data, then you are SOL.

yes there should be a good study or academic paper on how google's quality guidelines are shaping the content of the net.

google is a registrar, has access to that information.

I wouldn't be surprised if Google had some other criteria to confirm or deny whether a site should be classified as spam. For example, if Google's stats showed there were X number or Y percentage of users that stayed K number of minutes on a site or viewed Q number of pages, then the site is useful to those people.

Wrong, it's proprietary data for each registrar and not shared between all registars.

If you're trying to make it with thin affiliate sites on random domains may work short term but eventually fade out of results. If running these on great descriptive .com domains will work better as generic keyword .coms have natural traffic so search results don't matter as much.

This is a fantastic document. Where did you come across this?

Yes, a page with nothing but Google ads will be penalized. Google wants to see something on a page other than ads.

You guys shouldn't be surprised by this. Google makes more money from corporations than affiliates. It should be of no surprise that they are transitioning to showing them more attention while packing their own pockets.

We are going to need a new search engine in the next few years. Google is crossing the line in a lot of places. Time for someone new to step in and take a small chunk of the pie.

To meet tbeir definition, it must be a site which adds no value. I find Google very valuable. Notice too their definition is a page with nothing but affiliate links out. If I open Google.com, I see NO links out at all. If I run a search, a get appropriate links, but they are not affiliate links.

Many surfers don't know there is a problem. Hell tons of people still type domains in the google search box because that is how they think the internet works.

There are people out there that can build a better search engine. At this point the real challenge would be getting people to use it.

Google is the Microsoft of the Internet.

Edit: only real chance at it is if Facebook does it. Wouldn't surprise me if they're working on it.

facebook will never create a search engine. they have their own alternate way of sharing, sorting and discovering information by recommendation, which google is trying to copy and integrate.

I am just being facetious but wtf is that search bar thing on top of every FB page then and how does it operate?

yes there is a search but like i said fb mainly organizes it's data not by search results but affinity.

I can prove google loves brand new affiliate sites with duplicate content and spammy blog comments from asian tlds

This is true. Think about this. Penalizing affiliate sites should increase revenue for Google AdWords. The less traffic that goes to the middle man, the less power they have, and businesses go direct to Google for traffic via AdWords.

Incorrect. Being a registrar gives them access to whois info in bulk. It does not give them access to the info 'behind whois privacy services'.