Is there a new Google Slap?

[Rich]

Hi Folks,

Thought you might want to read this. Not sure if it's over reacting or not. Best to know about it either way.

http://www.netfrontiermarketing.com/?p=183

Cheers,
Rich

[Dennis]

(07-25-2009 08:35 PM)Rich Wrote:  Hi Folks,

Thought you might want to read this. Not sure if it's over reacting or not. Best to know about it either way.

http://www.netfrontiermarketing.com/?p=183

Cheers,
Rich

Hi Rich,

I got the email from Perry Marshall that started it all. I am a complete newbie, so have spent very little time so far building a review site{s}. I am anxious to hear Vita's thoughts.

Dennis

[Vita_Vee]

I have not seen any evidence of that as none of my sites have been slapped that way.

If this is true then the main thing to do will be to focus on list building. Create a content site exactly like what you (they) did before but instead of trying to have the visitors click on an affiliate link, try to get them to subscribe to your list.

Then in your email sequence direct them wherever you want with your affiliate links.

This would make the system unslapable
Also I suspect it would be (much) more profitable....Maybe I should do this right now!

But as I said I have not seen any evidence of this yet... Maybe Perry is preparing people to purchase his forthcoming product who knows? That would be a good preselling: show them a problem, then offer a solution...

Just a thought though... Perry is a very good marketer and I learnt a lot of things from him when I started PPC.
If what he says is true it seems that the way I build my review sites is good in google's eyes.

Vita Vee

[Rich]

Great advice Vita, as always!

Cheers,
Rich

(07-26-2009 04:11 PM)vitavee Wrote:  I have not seen any evidence of that as none of my sites have been slapped that way.

If this is true then the main thing to do will be to focus on list building. Create a content site exactly like what you (they) did before but instead of trying to have the visitors click on an affiliate link, try to get them to subscribe to your list.

Then in your email sequence direct them wherever you want with your affiliate links.

This would make the system unslapable
Also I suspect it would be (much) more profitable....Maybe I should do this right now!

But as I said I have not seen any evidence of this yet... Maybe Perry is preparing people to purchase his forthcoming product who knows? That would be a good preselling: show them a problem, then offer a solution...

Just a thought though... Perry is a very good marketer and I learnt a lot of things from him when I started PPC.
If what he says is true it seems that the way I build my review sites is good in google's eyes.

Vita Vee

[bdegrossa]

I listened to Perry's Marshall's mastermind call on this topic the other day, and Vita asked me to post what I learned here.

Seems that people are definitely getting slapped -- Quality Scores have gone from 10 down to 1 in many cases. As best I could tell, it was people running Adwords, only, and the big PPC management companies who are seeing their clients hit by it seem to think that Google is partially using bots to sniff out affiliate links and also slapping on the basis of human review.

On the call they kept saying that the Google test was: would the reviewer want to send their grandmother to that site? So, think of whether or not your site is really providing VALUE and if it can be trusted. (Think of those stories of older people getting taken for their money because they trusted someone).

They don't like sites that review several products and then promote the one that pays the highest commission. They don't like the sites where you don't even own the product yet your reviewing it.

If you want to provide value -- provide pictures of the product. Point out the pros and the cons. Do a video showing how to use the product. Give product tips that no one else is giving. Be the true expert on the product.

By the way, one of these guys mentioned Top10Reviews.com as a credible site that would never get slapped. They seem to have a lot of information on what they're reviewing -- they obviously do a lot more homework than they typical affiliate review site.

Also, as Vita discussed, here, a very safe bet is to provide good content for your readers in whatever niche you want to promote. Use this content (perhaps even a free report as a lure for opt-ins) to build a list. And then email them products that you think your readership will find valuable. That way, there are no affiliate links on your site.

According to them, false product review sites can be spotted a mile away by the trained eye.

Hope that helps,

Becky

[bdegrossa]

Okay, so maybe there is yet ANOTHER GOOGLE SLAP!

I just noticed that my account is showing ZERO impressions today. I chatted with Google. They said:

"Ok, your Google AdWords account has been suspended due to submissions of ads that promote Google Money Tree or ads that promote a misrepresented affiliation with Google. In response to the many complaints that we have received from users and publishers, we've decided not to allow these ads which promote unacceptable business practices."

I'm not promoting Money Tree. The only possible "offender" is a PAUSED campaign for Google Cash Detective.

The rep said she didn't know if me deleting the campaign would solve the problem. She'll get back with me in 24 hours.

Head's up! They're on the affiliate war path!

Becky

[Vita_Vee]

Thanks a lot Becky for the report.

The webinar was surely very interesting.

But I don't have the impression that Google is chasing affiliates, rather it seems that they want to give the visitors a useful experience, and so it seems that they want quality advertisers only.

I say this because of 3 things:

1/ We can read on their site that they give advices to affiliates, they wouldn't do so if they wanted to eliminate the affiliates from adwords:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/an...swer=45068

2/ I have not been slapped on any of my sites. I even tried today to delete my keywords from an adgroup, then added back the same keywords to see if something would happen but I still got the same quality score (8/10).

3/ I just read a post from Mark Ling and it seems he has not experienced any slap, so it tends to confirm my own experience so far:
http://www.affilorama.com/blog/google-slap


About your account Becky, the exact same thing happened to me also in the past (at least 1 year ago). It was because of a campaign I created to promote keyword elite. I was angry because it was a great money maker and when I looked at the google results page I saw that several advertisers were still bidding on the terms I was bidding on and their ads were still showing up. But Google didn't want to hear anything! They don't like talking with the advertisers, if they say something is wrong with you, even if it's not, they have the last word.

This is when I started to work on SEO, that has helped me a lot

From their help page (link above) we see that they don't accept any data entry related ad so a high percentage of the money making affiliate programs are probably NOT ok. This is probably in this niche that some affiliates have been slapped.

Vita Vee

[bdegrossa]

Well, I've now been suspended -- but only for FOREVER.

Seems the problem was promoting Google Cash Detective via Adwords. Guess what? The name "Google" is in the product Google Cash Detective. Apparently, this is a no-no.

The email I got says, in so many words, "Goodbye, forever." "Any account you open will be suspended."

I can't talk to anyone because the phone system asks for my Adwords account, and then it says to look at their support help online.

I just hired a PPC manager to optimize my account because I got it to where it was bringing me $3k per month but I think he could easily get it to $5-6k. He was going to start next week. Anyway, he's going to call his Adwords rep and see if he can get anywhere.

I'll let you know how it goes. It seems that my advice at this point is not to promote anything via Adwords that has "Google" in the product name.

Becky

[bdegrossa]

(07-29-2009 08:46 PM)vitavee Wrote:  Thanks a lot Becky for the report.

The webinar was surely very interesting.

But I don't have the impression that Google is chasing affiliates, rather it seems that they want to give the visitors a useful experience, and so it seems that they want quality advertisers only.

I say this because of 3 things:

1/ We can read on their site that they give advices to affiliates, they wouldn't do so if they wanted to eliminate the affiliates from adwords:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/an...swer=45068

2/ I have not been slapped on any of my sites. I even tried today to delete my keywords from an adgroup, then added back the same keywords to see if something would happen but I still got the same quality score (8/10).

3/ I just read a post from Mark Ling and it seems he has not experienced any slap, so it tends to confirm my own experience so far:
http://www.affilorama.com/blog/google-slap


About your account Becky, the exact same thing happened to me also in the past (at least 1 year ago). It was because of a campaign I created to promote keyword elite. I was angry because it was a great money maker and when I looked at the google results page I saw that several advertisers were still bidding on the terms I was bidding on and their ads were still showing up. But Google didn't want to hear anything! They don't like talking with the advertisers, if they say something is wrong with you, even if it's not, they have the last word.

This is when I started to work on SEO, that has helped me a lot

From their help page (link above) we see that they don't accept any data entry related ad so a high percentage of the money making affiliate programs are probably NOT ok. This is probably in this niche that some affiliates have been slapped.

Vita Vee

By the way, Vita, I understand why you began focusing on SEO! I feel VERY motivated to make that work for me right now!!!

Becky

[Vita_Vee]

Becky this is a soooo very sad news! They really act like arrogant people at google. Your campaign wasn't even active!!!

That's crazy to suspend an account because of a paused campaign and without any notice

Hopefully your PPC manager will be able to find a solution, I do hope so much!

Now no matter what happens, if he finds a solution or if he can't find any you should definitely invest more of your time in SEO. The good thing is that you could even make more money because you get more traffic from the organic listings than with PPC when you have good rankings and this costs much less money.

I hope you have gathered enough data and you know EXACTLY which keywords were converting for you...

[Vita_Vee]

(07-30-2009 02:42 AM)bdegrossa Wrote:  By the way, Vita, I understand why you began focusing on SEO! I feel VERY motivated to make that work for me right now!!!
Becky

Becky, I have just started a new thread to give you some ideas:
http://vitavee.com/forums/thread-165.html

[premier4]

Hi Guys,

I haven't been slapped as such which is a shock as I am using a direct linking method with a little grey hat trick I discussed with Vita off this forum. Vita thinks it's more black hat but do you know what the shocker is? They are disapproving my ads that others are allowed to run blatantly saying they don't allow words like cure or heal or quickly! Others are running these day in and day out and I pointed this out to Google. They said if I were to give them the names of the sites they would take action! Can you believe that! What am I? An unpaid Google Detective Snitch now! Wait! Is that a name for a new product launch! LOL! Anyway with all their resources you would think they would be able to see who was using what they call miracle cures being advertised just like they found mine! Sorry for the rant. Just thought I would let you guys know if you didn't already they are arragant as Vita said. Perhaps Microsoft and Yahoo ganging up on them is a good thing for marketers as Ryan Deiss has said. I am looking at Bing as an alternative to PPC and Myspace I here are getting good results. Will keep you posted.

[emarlow]

This is a great thread. Vita Vee recommends this page on google for affiliate marketing information: http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin...swer=45068 <--- Link. More affiliates should simply read what google is asking of them to be avoid slaps and banning.

[NetPays]

Google is just getting too powerful and letting their policies run gamut, changing them whenever they want without giving fair warnings and second chances to their customers! In my opinion they will FALL to other search engines looking for those advertising dollars.

[gabibeowulf]

Why still struggling with google .. yahoo and bing are much more affiliate friendly .. as long as you're not promoting scammy CPA products like acai and "business opportunities"

[SEO_going]

(07-29-2009 08:46 PM)Vita_Vee Wrote:  Thanks a lot Becky for the report.

The webinar was surely very interesting.

But I don't have the impression that Google is chasing affiliates, rather it seems that they want to give the visitors a useful experience, and so it seems that they want quality advertisers only.

I say this because of 3 things:

1/ We can read on their site that they give advices to affiliates, they wouldn't do so if they wanted to eliminate the affiliates from adwords:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/an...swer=45068

2/ I have not been slapped on any of my sites. I even tried today to delete my keywords from an adgroup, then added back the same keywords to see if something would happen but I still got the same quality score (8/10).

3/ I just read a post from Mark Ling and it seems he has not experienced any slap, so it tends to confirm my own experience so far:
http://www.affilorama.com/blog/google-slap


About your account Becky, the exact same thing happened to me also in the past (at least 1 year ago). It was because of a campaign I created to promote keyword elite. I was angry because it was a great money maker and when I looked at the google results page I saw that several advertisers were still bidding on the terms I was bidding on and their ads were still showing up. But Google didn't want to hear anything! They don't like talking with the advertisers, if they say something is wrong with you, even if it's not, they have the last word.

This is when I started to work on SEO, that has helped me a lot

From their help page (link above) we see that they don't accept any data entry related ad so a high percentage of the money making affiliate programs are probably NOT ok. This is probably in this niche that some affiliates have been slapped.

Vita Vee

Hi Vita,

I started IM about 6 weeks ago working on SEO in health and fitness promoting an affiliate product. Based on the discussion here I am leaning towards only using squeeze pages with a free report when promoting affiliate (re: Clickbank) products and possibly using video on the page as well.

Have you found that people are looking to promote more on Yahoo, Bing, etc. so they do not have to deal with Google slaps?

Thanks

[Vita_Vee]

Hi SEO_Going

You should avoid thin websites consisting of one single squeeze page. This is not the kind of results that google tries to show to their users. If you don't have more content on your site you will probably have some difficulties to rank well or to keep your rankings.

Instead you should have some useful articles targeting different keyword phrases and have your optin box on all your pages. This creates multiple entry points for searchers and you will get more quality traffic.

Quote:Have you found that people are looking to promote more on Yahoo, Bing, etc. so they do not have to deal with Google slaps?

I don't know what other marketers prefer, but I tend to focus myself on Google only. This is where the real traffic is and it's not that hard to rank well. As long as you publish quality content on your site (content that people want to read) you don't have to fear any slap from google.

VV

[scolberg]

I had a wp blog with affiliate links directed to a cpa offer with a quality score of 7 to 9 which was slapped. Had to take it down.

[dejvim]

Slap or no Slap, i think you hit it on the head when you said list building is the key...
The list if the most difficult to build and will take time BUT your biggest asset..

THanks VV

[Gazetter]

It's not the first time I hear such story.
Where can regular marketer get all these Google rules described?