Hi, I have an affiliates directory that also includes webmaster articles and a webmaster forums. Both them additions is so affiliates can learn how to start up a site, promote it, etc. In anycase, all listing submissions to the site is free where they can only submit their affiliate program and it's details. But after some consideration I now want to offer featured listings at a fixed monthly price. This therefore allows affiliate program owners to receive a higher listing meaning more exposure and more traffic. But I was thinking that with this featured listing idea, why don't a chart a fixed X amount per month for it and if people want to get the top #1 ranking for their featured listing rather than being below other featured listings, then why don't they bid for that ranking, meaning adding more money onto of the Fixed cost of getting a featured listing in the first place. The reason I want to do this tactic is that I decided to place 75% of the featured listings money back into advertising via Adwords and other methods. Therefore the more traffic I get the more my affiliate program owners would want to pay each month for the No 1 spot on the site. Also the top 5 paying affiliate programs get featured on the home page. Now doing a bit of research, I know 99% that Google did penalise Bidding Directories a few yrs back as I was around when it happened, but my aim for this is to bid for their position so they get more clicks and exposure. Does anybody think this sounds like a good idea or would Google believe it's another Bidding Directory for PR gain? I've taken 7 yrs to build up this site and get it where it is and it's my main source of income and wouldn't want to make a mistake that would cost me my business/lifelyhood. Thanks!
On one hand if you already making money them why risking take chances and jeopardize what you're having now. But then again, G. never really went after bidding directories and some of them are doing very well. 6 months ago we started ABC iT Bidding Directory and 3 month later Google ranked it PR 3, which says at least to me that G. is not going after BD I guess in the end you will be the one who is going to decide and have the last word what is best for you fastreplies
The thing is, the best thing for me is to get this bidding featured listing stuff on the site, but bouts 75% of traffic comes from Google so if it got penalised, it would be a big hit or a kill. Yep, as you say, if it's making money then why risk taking the chance? But the problem here is it's making money, but if I don't up my game sooner or later, then I will get eaten up by my competition anyway. I'm aiming to stay ahead of competition and having this type of thing will mean more money for advertising where I will take 25% cut of the featured bidding money and 75% goes back into advertising. Google did go after bidding directories I saw it and it was a huge discussion. Many discussions on here infact about it at the time. My intention is to not have a bidding directory, but to have a way of advertisers to bid their affiliate programs higher in the featured listings so they can get 1 ranking for their affiliate listing which includes more exposure and traffic. It's a hard decission as I want to charge for advertising this way, but don't want to Google penalty risk even though it's not in the purpose of selling PR, Google may see it the wrong way.
Then invent your own terminology and don't call it "bidding for position". If G. algo set to phishing for term "bid" then use something like "contribution" instead. fastreplies
It only takes one competitor to look at your site, hate it and then aim to find fault and report it to Google. So don't matter what wording you use I guess. I will look into it anyway and think I will go ahead with it.
Right then, I'm not like a majority here and do huge research before going into anything. Therefore after this post I decided to bring up every Bidding Directory post in the Directory Forum on DP since Mid 2007 when the Bidding Directory Penalizing started. As I had not been doing directory or SEO wrk for just over 2 yrs now, but still hav had a site growing it's traffic, serps, etc with PR5, I decided it's best to catch up on the Google stuff with Bidding Directories and decided that it's best to keep away from this even though my main intention was not to build a bidding directory, but just have a bidding advertising system on the site, Google may see it the wrong way and I can't risk losing my livelihood. So therefore I have decided to change the way I do things which although may not bring in quite as much revenue, it will or should improve my current revenue meaning more advertising budget for the site. I'm not a person that wants to risk killing a site with Alexa of under 16000 (target under 1000 in 2 to 3 yrs time), Google PR5, etc. There's been a huge amount of wrk and money put into this site and risking it on an advertising concept that Google seems to not or may not like is something I don't want to do.