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Liz Gazer is the Affiliate Account Manager for Rugman.com a merchant offering an affiliate program through Commission Junction. We recently exchanged emails concerning the impact search engines are having on merchants and affiliates by removing publisher sites that use datafeeds. Our email exchanges are provided below. In terms of full disclosure, The Tweedy Group, is an active affiliate in Rugman.com's program, and on a personal note I'm still a bit bummed that the site we created to expand our relationship with Rugman.com -- Oriental Rug Discounts -- is now absent from Google. This is just one of many sites we created in the past few months which seem to have gone missing on major search engines. Since this is not necessarily a new topic in affiliate arena but rather a situation that can be linked to past industry concerns about affiliate links being removed by search engines I hoping to hear from you so that we can share your insights, experience, and opinions. Personally I’m a bit concern by recent actions CJ has taken to add additional domains for serving and tracking that I believe is an attempt to minimize actions search engines might take against their ad serving even though CJ notes the additions were “to allow for future system growth and functionality, Commission Junction is expanding the number of domains we use to serve ads and track clicks.” The question then is do you believe the affiliate datafeed model is dead and there an underlying topic we should be concerned about? ================
Thanks for your email, and for following up on our oldie. Unfortunately, it's more difficult to get a site indexed in the major I'll examine other ways in which we might work together. Many thanks, Todd
You're very right - unfortunately the big SE's have been giving these Still, many of our affiliates simply prefer to use the feeds regardless, It will be interesting to see how the affiliate marketing industry Do you have a publisher site at all or are you doing strictly PPC Cheers,
I've reviewed your rug site and I remember it now. Your people have done a great job on it... what a shame the SE's won't index it the way you'd hoped. At least you know you're not alone. I'm hearing more and more about this problem in recent weeks... it's I'm not sure yet how we're going to handle this issue the SE's have Re: using my comments in a blog - should I be flattered? (haha) You have All the best, Comments (5) + TrackBacks (0) | Category: ! Hot Topics
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Adam Viener
1. Todd Crawford on October 15, 2004 3:44 PM writes...
First we need to recognize that the search engines have the user’s best interests in mind when they index (or do not index) sites in their result sets. Many affiliate sites do provide a different user experience but they aren’t the primary sellers or owners of the content and they aren’t seen as providing value by search engines. The search engine algorithms take a lot into account included the duplication of content which is a significant criterion in relevancy. Sites that just put a superficial fascia on top of the data aren’t adding value to the end user; they are essentially search engine spam, presenting the data that is already available through the seller’s site. A better strategy for providing value and getting ranked in search engines is to consider creating a community site where users can rate the products (in this example carpets and rugs), write reviews, compare other similar products, discuss care and maintenance, educate the user on manufacturing and quality concerns, etc. Affiliates need to concentrate on adding value to the end user, doing so creates sustainable business for affiliates, advertisers and solution providers like Commission Junction.
Permalink to Comment2. Beth Kirsch on October 16, 2004 12:39 AM writes...
Todd,
You know, Audible is a data feed driven program, we have 14 feeds outside of CJ, one is CJ and are building a web services program for our affiliates.
So, this is a topic I have had tons of conversations about. I've talked to affiliates, Exes at Google and Overture, CJ (Crawford for one) LinkShare, and Kowbunga exes, and tons of other people.
But perhaps most importantly, I've seen which affiliates have made it though the updates and which have not. The strong sites that are truely valued added with links from various merchants are doing fine, even if it's ghetto, SEO which is kinda of funny to me. The sites that are straight feeds are not making it.
I don't think data feeds are dead, I just think that it's as Todd C said: value added. We have a number of programs to give our top guys individual spider food.
My theory is if merchants want to use search engine stuffing as a means for their affiiates to generate sales, it takes a lot more tools than feeds these days.
You know, I blogged a bit about this at one point, but there is a reason the a blogger won the SEO Google contest a while back. It's all about the content. http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,64130,00.html
Thanks for raising the topic! I think we need to talk more about this as a community!
Cheers,
Beth
Permalink to Comment3. Adam Viener on October 25, 2004 4:14 PM writes...
Gang,
Is there a good tool out there that alows customers to rate products and add comments on a specific product? What's the easiest way to add this type of functionality to a website?
Adam
Permalink to Comment4. Liz on October 25, 2004 7:18 PM writes...
Hi everyone,
As a follow up to the email exchanges that took place between Todd Tweedy and myself almost a month back, I have to say that all the buzz on where the affiliate marketing world was going with data feeds had really begun to make my head spin as more and more comments came my way about "the death of affiliate data feeds".
To echo the comments made by both Todd Crawford and Beth Kirsch, I would like to add a relieved comment now to say that I am hearing more and more about these "value added" sites making it through the algorithm updates without consequence. This is surely a relief to myself, and undoubtedly many others - I'd like to focus on learning how to teach our data feed users how to use our feeds in order to create this value-added content that makes it through the storm. Any suggestions are always welcome.
Best to all,
Permalink to CommentLiz
5. Todd Tweedy on October 25, 2004 9:39 PM writes...
After nearly two months of rejection, today I signed a contract with a trusted feed provider that will allow me to have associated web pages of a holiday shopping site indexed, and therefore, included in major search engines. In today's search market you've gotta pay to play, and in my experience indexing has been a very successful tool.
In terms of rating the soon-to-be-indexed site, on a scale of 1 to 10 with ten being the highest rating, I give this site our team developed a 4 in terms of what Liz and others have called "value added" sites. So why is this site getting indexed?? Don't be surprised: it's about making money. The site has more than 3,000 pages, and is likely to generate significant revenue for the feed provider. What's frustrating is a review site of web hosting companies our team spent 5 weeks researching, and writing reviews about has been rejected for indexing. The site -- http://www.web-hosting-for-websites.com -- even included a "Do we use it?" column in our web host review chart so that our site visitors could have a better feel for why we gave a particular host a specific rating.
Is there an equation for creating value added content sites that make it through the storm? Here are five thoughts:
1. Niche within a niche. Search engines love original content. Drill down into niches so that you can provide an independent and authoritative voice. I've focused on index feeds recently and this tactic resulted in a 19-page site to get indexed.
2. Create unique title pages following this mantra: Focus on creating unique keyword or keyword phrase title tags that use an average concentration of keywords as the need to use. Think of it this way: don't bully your way to the top.
3. Think in plurals. Single word keywords are becoming the dinosaurs of search engine marketing. Follow Google's non-published principle of keyword + 1; keyword + 2; keyword + n.
4. 3's a crowd. You'll need at least three external sites pointing toward your site so start with your merchant partner, and ask for a link. This one-way link is a great validator for establishing a new site. Here's a great example: www.askmrcallalert.com. I do a lot of business with CallWave.com (http://www.callwave.com) and asked the affiliate manager for a link to support optimization efforts. The site now has a PR of 4 for Google and is moving up the ranking for key converting phrases.
5. Create a business partnership with your merchants. When shit does south using your feed it helps to have a dedicated business partner on the other end of the line asking how we can work together to build future business.
What’s works for you??
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