Unfortunately with Google's fairly vague announcement, the net is abuzz about what unique url means. I have emailed some questions to my Google rep, but until I get specific answers, it looks like we are back to rumor land. Here is what I have heard:

Single URL?
I have heard that Google will actually be looking at the final domain where the customer lands, including all re-directions and frames. They specifically pointed out that framed urls won't work. I have also heard that XXX.domain.com and www.domain.com will be considered the same url.

How Many Ads?
The announcement from Google was vague on if it was going to show 1 ad or the merchant's ad AND an Affiliate ad. I have heard 1 ad, period.

Per Page?
People have asked if this is one unique url per results page or for all results, I hope that it would be per results page, but at this point I don't have any confirmation.

Matching URLs?
A small "by the way" comment in their announcement reads: "Please note that your Display URL must match the URL of your landing page". Some have speculated that this could mean the display url has to match your link url, which would in affect ban search arbitrage all together since affiliates have to link through redirecting urls. I think however, this mealy means the finally destination where the user ends up has to match the display url.

Start Date? Google's announcement didn't commit to an implementation date, saying only sometime in January. Google has told their larger merchants that this will take affect on the January 12th.

Drop the Aff?
Google has also announced with this change that affiliates will no longer need to designate themselves as affiliates in their ads. I am not sure why they would make this move, seem counter productive to the user experience. Perhaps their research showed that nobody knew what aff meant anyway. It could be a sly attempt to get affiliates to modify their ads, thereby costing them their built up CTR rates and advantaging the original owner's sites who don't modify their ads.

Sounds like an opportunity for the super affiliates to re-define themselves. If I am no longer an AFF, what am I? Guess I would rather be a wise-aff than a dumb-aff, only time will tell...

ClizkZ's article on the subject has an interesting quote from Salar Kamanger, director of product management at Google. She says, "The new policy, which will be implemented over the coming weeks, is intended to create a cleaner interface for users, increase the diversity of merchants represented in the links, and reduce duplicate ads, all while recognizing the important benefits affiliate marketers bring to the table"

What are you thoughts? Do you think affiliates feel “important” to Google? Have you heard anything different?