November 10, 2004
Is Affiliate Markeing on Google going away?
Posted by
Adam Viener
A friend of mine sent me a link to a posting on Webmaster's world which reads as follows:
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shaka1978 writes:
"A friend of mine attended a Google University seminar at Earls Court (London, UK) on Thursday last week. Apparently one of the guys from Google said that they were planning to phase out affiliate bidding on AdWords 'very soon'. The reason - showing several ads for the same merchant reflects badly on the user's experience.
I'm a full-time affiliate who primarily uses AdWords to send customers to the exact product page on a merchant's website. If this is true quite frankly I'm in trouble. I called my account rep immediately in horror and he said he'd heard nothing of the sort. I would certainly hope Google would give plenty of warning if they were planning such a huge change.
My concerns were dampened slightly by my colleague informing me that he also said Froogle was going to be 'huge' in the UK this Christmas.
Yeah right! A tall order seeing as Joe Public hasn't a clue it even exists, not to mention it hardly has any merchants onboard etc.
Anyway, I really don't understand what Google's long term plan is. How could they possibly afford to cut off all the revenue from affiliate bids, then kill AdWords completely by giving Froogle a big push (let's face it, why click on AdWords ads when Froogle gives the price). A double whammy, shortly after going PLC with investors to please, I don't think so."
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This is probably just a nasty rumor, I am checking with my Google reps to make sure.
This would be bad news for super affiliates, bad news for merchants and bad financial news for Google. I was kind of hoping that Overture would take a look at all the revenue that Google is making and change their policy to allow affiliate links.
Has anyone heard anything similar?
COMMENTS
That would be really bad news but I am pretty sure it's a kind of hoax. Google can't make this error. I think that Google should validate lesser affiliates : it would be better for everybody (affiliate network, affiliates, advertiser, and Google himself !).
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I hope it is a rumor as well, but let's not forget there is already precedent for this in the industry, Overture requires everyone to have their own website to advertise, and affiliates can't post an affiliate link there.
I was kind of hoping that Overture would see the cash Google is making and revamp their service to have a display url and a link url like Google and allow affiliates to link directly to the merchant via affiliate links.
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Tracked on November 12, 2004 10:22 AM
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I'm noticing enough buzz on the topic to merit bringing it up here - folks on the boards are talking about whether Google might ban the practice of bidding on trademarked terms. The original rumour came from a Google UK source, reported on Corante, fir...
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Tracked on November 13, 2004 11:19 PM
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Adam Viener
