Very Frustrated with Google's Latest Attack on Affiliates

Well, I thought I would update this post with some emails/responses with Google adwords. Trying to get a straight answer out of them is like spinning plates. Here goes, for those interested:

From Me to Google:

O.K. I give up! Can you please explain to me how you guys can knock my

> quality score from 7 to 1 overnight, then let someone come in and use
the
> exact same keywords and exact same landing page to market the exact same

> thing?
>
> This is absolutely insane. I've tried changing things to conform to
your
> standards, but it doesn't seem to matter. You won't except my sites.
>
> There is no real information on the new standards you are setting for
> affiliates. I can search multiple keywords and find affiliates
marketing
> products on "review" pages(bogus and total garbage), and yet I have a
real
> review blog, with actual comments and feedback, along with other
> information that people are extremely interested in, and you won't let
me
> promote my site.
>
> SO WHAT GIVES?!?! I need details on what is allowed for affiliates and

> what isn't. I will conform to meet your standards, but I need to know
what
> the standards are.
>
> Are my sites being human reviewed because I've been flagged? Why is
> someone allowed to promote the exact same thing I was promoting when I
am
> not. Please explain this to me, in detail.
>
> Any help is appreciated. Marketing is how I make my living, and you
guys
> have completely ended my pay check.

Google's Response
Hello Michael,

Thank you for your email. I apologize for any frustration that you may
have experienced. I understand that you are concerned that your keyword
quality scores have dropped to 1/10 while you notice ads similar to your
running. You are wondering if your site was reviewed by AdWords
Specialists. You would also like to know what is allowed for affiliates.
Please know that the AdWords system retrieves and evaluates webpages. I
have addressed all your concerns in detail below.

KEYWORD QUALITY SCORE

I reviewed your account and confirmed that your keyword quality score have
dropped due to the quality of your landing page. The AdWords system
retrieves and evaluates websites on a regular basis.

Your landing page is the active webpage where customers 'land' when they
click your ad. The quality of that landing page is one of several factors
that determine your keywords' Quality Scores. It's influenced by the
usefulness and relevance of information provided on the page, ease of
navigation, load time, how many links are on the page, and more. To ensure
that your ads run, I strongly encourage you to improve the quality of your
landing page.

To learn more about how landing page quality is determined, as well as how
to improve your landing page quality, visit
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=113575&hl=en_US.

AFFILIATES

Here's are the restrictions on affiliates and why you might notice ads
similar to your running:

Google's affiliate advertising policy states that we only display one ad
per search query for advertisers (affiliates and parent companies) sharing
the same top-level domain in the display URL.

For example, for the domain 'google.com,' we would determine the following
URLs to be equivalent:

- home.google.com
- www.google.com
- google.com
- www.google.com/home
- www.Google.com

We also have restrictions on duplicate content. If we find that there's no
unique content between your site and your affiliate's or reseller's site,
we'll link your site to theirs. Affiliates or resellers may also be linked
to each other for this reason. When sites are linked together, we will
only show one ad for these sites at a time: the ad with the highest Ad
Rank. Learn about Ad Rank at
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6111&hl=en_US.

You can miss out on traffic if your partners' sites are linked together,
so it's best to encourage your partners to differentiate themselves. We
consider sites to be differentiated when one of the following is true:

- The landing page for each ad offers different products or services (for
example, a large manufacturer with two product sites, one solely for
stereos and one solely for computers, both running on the keyword
'electronics')

- The landing page for each ad serves a different purpose (for example,
one site focuses on product information only, and the other site focuses
on product sale only)

- Any product overlaps on the landing pages are not significant enough to
affect user experience

- The pricing difference offered by each site is significant and based on
the same criteria (for example, if one site includes pricing with tax, the
other site must include pricing with tax)

We strongly encourage you to build guidelines like these into your
agreements with affiliates and resellers. This can help ensure that you
don't experience unexpected drops in traffic.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at
https://adwords.google.com/support, where you'll find answers to many
frequently asked questions. We look forward to providing you with the most
effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

Wendy
The Google AdWords Team

My Response:
"We also have restrictions on duplicate content. If we find that there's no
unique content between your site and your affiliate's or reseller's site,
we'll link your site to theirs. Affiliates or resellers may also be linked
to each other for this reason."

I saw nothing in this email in regards to having affiliate links on your page, yet the buzz around the internet (forums and blogs) is that Google is restricting sites which are composed of "too many" affiliate links. So would it be fair to say that a landing page composed of product reviews of affiliate products meets adwords standards, so long as the product reviews (i.e. landing page content) are unique compared to that of others "affiliate" sites promoting similar products, AND the reviews (content) is unique compared to that of the parent site for which you are advertising?

And Yet Another Spun Google Response That Doesn't Really Address My Issues:

Thank you for informing us of your concern. Think about it in this way.
There are eight affiliates who are selling the same product and all have
one ad each. So, when I search for that particular product, I see eight
ads of the same product and almost the same information on every ad I
click and every website I visit. Am I deriving any value from these ads?
Is Google delivering value ads to the users? On the other hand if I am
visiting eight different websites with unique content and information, I
am exposed to more information and am able to decide which website is best
for my purchase. This ensures fair bidding to the most eligible
advertiser.

This is the exact reason why Google's affiliate advertising policy states
that we only display one ad per search query for advertisers (affiliates
and parent companies) sharing the same top-level domain in the display
URL.

We strongly encourage you to have a Landing Page that is unique, so that
your Keyword Quality Scores improve and your ad can have better
visibility.

If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at
http://adwords.google.com/support/aw/, where you'll find answers to many
frequently asked questions. We look forward to providing you with the most
effective advertising available.

Sincerely,

Himabindu
The Google AdWords Team

"We strongly encourage you to have a Landing Page that is unique, so that
your Keyword Quality Scores improve and your ad can have better
visibility."

I mean come on, he's saying if the landing page is unique then the quality score should be fine. So, if I write my own personal review of a product that no one else is advertising on the keyword I choose, then I should not have a problem, right? WRONG!

Anyone else think those responses suck? I thought I asked pretty straight forward questions, and the best they can do is send me canned responses that reference very broad terms and recommendations. This will continue though, I'm going to keep writing until I get a straight answer... more to come!

 

You may get Google slapped because of "make money" products. Google are really looking at this kind of sites.
You are still lucky that you aren't get banned by them.

 

With make money and health supplements you are most definitely slapped. make money online campaigns are particularly targeted - you own't be able to make these work on Adwords

 

So why do I still see affiliates landing pages on adwords when I google "make money" and "health supplements"?

 

Could be any one of:

a) They haven't been reviewed yet
b) They offer something different
c) They've followed Google's Quality guidelines to the letter

 

UPDATE:

As of right now, I will say that I've found a plan that works. I can't go into details because I don't want 2837923 people doing this, but I can tell you it involves multiple websites and a "process" of sale. If I get punched, errr i mean slapped by google I'll share the strategy, so stay tuned for updates.

 

Good to know

Keep up the good work!

 

I'd honestly like to know how you got them to have an email dialogue w/ you. I got a "final warning" from them on my ppc campaign the other day so I paused it and sent them an email asking for "help and further clarification" as to how I was breaking their rules. that was about 5 days ago and I haven't heard back yet.

 

They act as kings of the universe

 

Haven't you heard? They're one of the biggest monopolies out there right now so they're the king. Some consider them even a bigger monopoly than Microsoft. Oh and that quality score, it really has nothing to do with uniqueness. They're BS-ing you. The higher your CTR is, the better your QS will be. The more they make money from people clicking your ads, the more Google will like you.

 

It really is sad because the adwords interface and tracking tools and adwords editor are awesome. Can anyone recommend any quality information on Yahoo and Bing programs?

 

And even quality information on... Adwords! More and more... lost!

 

I'm sorry to all that are having Adwords problems. I'm sure it's really frustrating!

Here is a blog post and video that may help from a Super Affiliate that really knows Adwords. He has lots more helpful articles on the topic.
Google his site for Google slap.

http://www.superaffiliatemindset.com/surviving-googles-landing-page-quality-score-part-ii/

http://www.superaffiliatemindset.com/how-to-beat-adwords-landing-page-quality-score/

Hope this helps and best of luck!