Googles Secret Guidelines On Thin Affiliates

Journalist Henk van Ess has caused a flurry of excitement on blogs and forums. In his blog he revealed that Google uses teams of humans all over the world to evaluate the accuracy of Google's search results.

These "international agents", who are paid $10 to $20 an hour, were recruited mainly through universities. They're paid to check search results at Google every day.

Don't be distracted by the debate over whether Google should be doing this.

Of course it should. It's just a form of quality control.

Google can use the evaluators' findings to tweak its algorithms and reduce search engine spam.

Spam Recognition Guide

What affiliates need to pay careful attention to is Google's "Spam Recognition Guide for Raters", which Henk revealed.

If you're a "thin affiliate," beware.

Although the report is a year old, about 80% of its contents are still being used by Google's evaluators, Henk says.

The confidential document gives us an unvarnished look at Google's attitude to affiliates.

If you're using any of the "manipulative techniques" Google describes, this report will probably encourage you to take a hard look at your website.

I hope you're not silly enough to be using hidden links or hidden text. Not surprisingly, Google teaches its "raters" how to detect them.

PPC revenue earners under fire

Are you creating pages without much content with the aim of collecting pay-per-click (PPC) revenue? Google's raters are taught to mark such pages as "Offensive", and gives examples.

Google secret guidelines spend some time discussing different ways in which some affiliates display results from pay-per-click search engines, so if you're doing that, you'll definitely want to study this report carefully.

Are you displaying ads disguised as search engine results? Google finds them offensive.

Are you adding a dmoz.org feed to your site with the aim of earning PPC revenue? That's "offensive", too.

Google says:

"We differentiate between affiliates that produce extra service, value, or content, and those that simply are duplicates of other sites, set up to boost traffic to other sites and earn a commission for it. The former ones are not Offensive and should be rated on the merits to the query. The latter ones are Offensive...

"Thin affiliate doorways are sites that usher people to a number of Affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. A site certainly has the right to try to earn income;

we're attempting to identify sites that do nothing but act as a commission-earning middleman."

Affiliate networks seen as warning signs

To Google, affiliate links such as qksrv.net, bfast.com and myaffiliateprogram.com - on the page or in redirects - "strongly suggest" that the site is a thin affiliate.

Are you using an affiliate datafeed? To Google, that's another warning sign.

However, if you offer a comparison of prices between different online merchants, you're OK, you're not a thin affiliate.

Google provides an incredibly tough guideline, which hundreds of thousands of affiliate sites fail to meet.

Google says:

"Do not call a page affiliate spam when an affiliation is only incidental to the message and purpose of a website. To determine whether participation in affiliate programs is central or incidental to the site's existence, ask yourself this question: Would this site remain a coherent whole if the pages leading to the affiliate (merchant) were taken away?"

That probably counts out most affiliate sites.

In summary, if you want to be friends with Google, make sure you provide extra value or content.

I've quoted only parts of the report. Any serious affiliate will want to study the whole thing carefully.

You can read the full report on Henk's blog here...

http://www.searchbistro.com/spamguide.doc

Note: A Google employee broke a non-disclosure agreement by revealing this report. I don't know how long it will stay online. You may want to do what I did - save a copy of it on your hard drive.

Now we know what Google really thinks of affiliates. You've been warned.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Allan Gardyne has been earning a very good living from affiliate programs since 1998. Learn from an affiliate veteran. Get his FREE newsletter... http://www.AssociatePrograms.com

Affiliate marketing offers earning opportunities, making it as one of the fastest growing industry in the World Wide Web today. It produces billions of dollars worth of income yearly. That is why many people are getting involved in it.

However, most of them are just getting into the jive of earning money without a concrete plan. You will have no strategies to be implemented, no guidelines to be followed.

In case that you are planning to get yourself involved in affiliate marketing, bear in your mind that it is a serious work. Though it is one of the easier ways of earning additional income, it still requires effort, perseverance, and a clear plan of action from your starting point up to the finish line.

An affiliate site that I highly recommend, that trains you and helps you get a clear plan of action is SITE BUILD IT (SBI). Why?

Here's why.. Many major universities (ex., University of Arizona), and colleges and even MBA programs include SBI! in their curriculum. No other online busineness building program has gained acceptance by the educational sector like SBI!

In addition to universities, stellar companies such as Clickbank and AdBrite recommend SBI! to their hundreds of thousands of affiliates and publishers. The reason is simple. SBI! makes them more effective online.

Only SBI! has garnered this type of support. Because only Site Build It! actually builds online success.

I speak from experience because I'm an owner of an SBI site myself and I can't believe how profitable this site can be. I love the traffic that I get from SBI. Everyone knows that traffic is the lifeblood of any online business. Only Site Build It! (SBI!) delivers the holy grail, traffic. Targeted traffic. Motivated, interested, warm, willing-to-buy visitors. That spells SUCCESS!!!