Google Slap for Review and CPA Sites?
Recently I've heard a number of people complain about having their adwords listings quality score drop from 7 (or even 10) down to 1. As a result they've gone from having to pay normal prices per click, e.g. 50c to prices like $20 per click if they want their ad to display.
Many have suggested that Google is slapping review sites and affiliate CPA sites.
What I'm going to do below is give you my thoughts on it based on what has happened inside my own adwords account. I'd appreciate comments from others.
After carefully combing through my adwords account I've found only a small percentage of my keywords have been 'slapped'.
There is a common theme to the slapping and it doesn't appear to have anything to do with review pages. I have several review pages on my different affiliate sites and the vast majority have remained unaffected.
The common theme that I've noticed has tended to be more to do with the on page optimization of the landing page. I've found that when I use Traffic Travis and run a page analysis on any keyword phrase that got slapped, I find that the page that it was directing traffic to received a B- or lower as the rating.
The other pages that didn't get slapped were search engine optimized for the keyword phrase that I was bidding on and received Traffic Travis 'page analysis' ratings of anywhere between a B and an A+.
I also need to point out that my affiliate sites all have at least 30 pages or more in content, so the overall site is a quality one. It is just the landing page itself which seems to be my particular problem. However for others of you, you may wish to make sure that your website itself is quality (ie don't just build a 5 page website and expect that to be enough).
I also make sure that I have 'no-index' on each of my ppc landinge pages. That way I can create relevant landing pages, without worrying about duplicate content as I've told Google not to index these ppc landing pages.
I won't call my writeup above a definitative answer just yet. I'll need to now go ahead and adjust some of my PPC landing pages and resubmit them to see if they rise in quality score or not.
Hopefully I'll have more results by next week.
It certainly doesn't appear that we need to 'cloak' links, or pretend that we aren't affiliates, which is what I've heard suggested around the place. Although that isn't a bad idea in any event as it makes it harder for people to track what you are doing.
So, what does everyone else think?
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By Makem1 at 8:54 4 Aug 2009
Avidpoet - I know you're right but you can't blame me for being bitter and twisted.
However I think my second point is of some interest and a number of gurus, including John Reese, are advocating this approach.
Lawrence
By hanstho at 13:08 4 Aug 2009
I am in the same situation as Ross, just launched my first campaign and after 4 days I get all my keywords slapped from 7 to 1. I have not yet added any redirects.
My landing pages and main site is build according to how Mark has build his WOWblackbook.com
Any usefull informations are welcome!
By Screw Google at 18:49 4 Aug 2009
Who gives a sh*t what Google wants anymore? It's gotten to a point where if I lose $100,000 by not dealing with them and their stupid mysterious quality score and slaps, then I lose $100,000.
Some people want to go into the ditches and fight it out with Google for the extra money. I just accept Google for the bitch she is and deny her my money.
Google isn't the center of the universe. There are a ton of other quality traffic sources. Diversify your marketing traffic sources and find your coconut tree on the beach.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
By Robert at 2:09 5 Aug 2009
I have been in this business a long time, and I 100% agree with Edward:
"There's a huge quantity of products for which a 'content site' is absolutely meaningless."
Google needs to understand they are simply a data collection company, not marketers. Marketing is an art, and selling/conversions are not based on some keyword density score, 500+ page bs site, whether are not I am an affiliate of the product I'm selling, etc. In fact, a lot of the crap affiliates try to build to get around their "guidelines" just end up creating more garbage online that we all have to wade through.
As a google customer, I want an ad for my search that directs me to a page that will sell me the product. It's that simple. Quit wasting my time. When's the last time you turned on the TV and thought, "I'm not buying Pepsi... they didn't offer enough quality information on the carbonated sugar water industry so I could make an educated decision."
By jamie at 11:34 5 Aug 2009
I am in agreeance with Edward and Robert. I have about 3 years in the sem traffic to affiliate game and there are some niches which do not warrant a 50 page content site. I good landing page which gives the user a balanced choice or just some great sales copy should be all you need. After all, if it doesn't convert for you, you aren't going to keep spending the cash for the clicks.
By rcarney6 at 15:44 7 Aug 2009
Thanks, Mark or anyone who can answer this.
Still lookint for the answer to a couple of things:
How do you put in a "no index" instuection on your web page?
Also, Chris said, "It's kind of a pain, but if you can outsource it or use DKI, it will cut down on alot of the work. I would think in this situation, DKI would be the best way to go to really maximize relevancy. " So, Chris or anyone who can answer: What is DKI.
Thanks again. That info will help as we are trying to make adjustments to our sites.
By Michael at 1:58 8 Aug 2009
Thanks for the great posts guys. Recently, I've also had the google slap on my adwords account.
It's starting to really frustrate me... the monopoly that google controls. Bah~
By dewey at 1:11 9 Aug 2009
Is there a resolution to this yet, or are people still trying to figure out exactly what happened? It seems it would have a super-huge effect on people using the blueprint.
By MarkLing at 10:26 9 Aug 2009
To Dewey and others. So far in my testing, and I still have more to do, I have found that by following my existing system of having 20-30 pages of unique content as a minimum on my website, doing the seo and linkbuilding first, then adding in the ppc landing pages later (using no-index) on these pages, and making sure that they receive an A- or better in T.Travis; has lead to none of these pages receiving a low quality score. That includes whether they are a squeeze page, OR a review page.
I don't think that at the moment it has any effect on the blueprint other than that people have to follow it more strictly than before (ie those having the most troubles are ones who have been cutting corners by putting up 5 page websites, or using too much duplicate content, and then going straight to ppc before adding more content, or building links).
Also remember it has to pass a human review too, so make your website 'look' credible too (e.g., don't use comic sans ms or weird fonts that people aren't used to seeing).
I am doing more testing but didn't want to jump to conclusions till I see more hard evidence, at the moment I have not had many listings get slapped at all and keep adding new ones without them getting slapped, no matter what kind of landing page I have (squeeze, review or otherwise).
By MarkLing at 10:29 9 Aug 2009
With regards to putting a no-index on your webpage, if it is a wordpress website, simply install the robots meta plugin (or the ultimate seo pack) and then with every post/page that you add, it'll give you the option of making it 'no-index'.
If it is not a wordpress website, then you need to place the following code into your header area of the html of your website:
By MarkLing at 10:30 9 Aug 2009
It seems I can't post the code as it is in html, read this post for the code:
http://www.affilorama.com/forum/ppc/using-noindex-on-ppc-page-to-prevent-duplicate-content-t3836.html
By John T at 0:16 11 Aug 2009
I think Google is shooting themselves in the foot when they "slap" people that will pay for their ad placements. This occurred to me on a few campaigns. I then went back and forth with a support specialist who said the site was nothing more than a doorway to affiliates. It still had content on it. Regardless, they told me to redo the site as a review site or some other format with comparison products. I spent over $350,000 on this campaign with them over 14 months. That's why they are shooting themselves in the foot. Imagine the lost revenue, they may think they are sacrificing these advertisers for quality, but I think they will end up losing market share. I'll take that $350,000 ad spend somewhere's else.
Another thought is that they slapped all the sites that did pass quality, but they pass it on to the advertiser as not passing because they actually want someone to pay more for the ad placement, then what you were paying. Thus, on the backend it is an auction format for the ppc and because you ranked high in quality and got a low ppc they want to remove you for someone that will pay more for that placement.
After I got the slap, I went and looked at some of the sites advertising with similar/same keywords, to my standards, those sites are junk and most were created in china/korea and were really infringing on trademarks. If I were a user, I would abandon that page.
My 2 cents.
By chandan saud at 15:40 11 Aug 2009
I have recently hear that google punish those blog that sell ads. So is it true?
Nice blog, I have stumbled your blog through stumbleupon, I own one blog related to work at home, my id on SU id chandansaud , plz add me on your friend list and if you like then please give me one thumps up. Thank you.
Chandan Saud
By Yonatan at 9:13 13 Aug 2009
Hi,
I got slapped tonight. My campaign went down from a 10 to a 1. Landing page quality has been shattered. I have more than a 1000 words on this page, and the site has over 60 indexed pages, navigation above the fold, contact page, privacy policy and so on.
I have no idea why this happened.
By MarkLing at 14:07 13 Aug 2009
Hi Yonatan,
It is hard for me to tell without seeing your website. You say you had 60 indexed pages, were they full of unique content? I've had websites slapped before that contained duplicate content (ie content from article sites etc), so it has to be unique. Was your landing page unique content? Or have you used this content elsewhere on your website or anywhere else? If it is used anywhere else you should have it no-index no-follow.
Are you affiliating to trustworthy products? If not that could be a problem too. e.g. satellite tv on pc sites have been known to get slapped badly often, regardless of the quality and uniqueness of content.
Was the on page optimization of your ppc landing pages done correctly for each keyword phrase that you were bidding on? Or did you just use the same landing page for all your keywords? (try to get an A in traffic travis page analysis feature.
By rcarney6 at 20:59 16 Aug 2009
Mark,
Thanks for the info about how to put in "no index" on our sites. I haven't tried it yet, but thanks for the link.
As for my earlier question about "DKI", I seem to have come across material that says that means "Dynamic Keyword Insertion," which is a phrase I do understand. That also seems to fit the context of the link where it was first brought up.
Thanks again for the replies.
By smpmedia at 11:03 15 Sep 2009
HI All,
We built a site about 3 months ago www.buildultimatemuscle.com - the site has no PPC pages just SEO optimised (A ratings total 18 pages) and link building with AMA and social bookmarking - the sites started to get pages ranked in top 10 last week and then within a week of being there the majority of our pages have been Google Slapped - raking dropped to over top 100
Can anyone explain why Google has done this?
I have noticed our Contact page had a error on it - I had previously turned it off as the contact form was getting spammed.
Does Google sandbox websites so no matter what we do the sites pages we will always have a low PR from manual review by Google?
Can anyone off a solution to get the website pages back up the rankings?
- add no follows on te affliate links?
- adding more pages?
- different product promo images?
- fixing the contact page?
The recommendation from Steven Clayton on http://www.affilorama.com/blog/solutions-to-important-affiliate-problems-webinar-with-steven-clayton
is to use a email sign up and not have any affliate links on your website.
This is completley different to the Affiliorama Training Methods so what do people think of this?
Your comments are all welcome!
By Claire Jarrett at 17:46 25 Sep 2009
Still battling a Google slap, keywords keep dropping to 1, minimum bids extremely high. This is not an affiliate site either which I don't understand - it's a job application site! However it is only 5 pages so will definitely take a look at this. I must admit I am enjoying the challenge, and fixing it for my sites allows me to pass on my knowledge to clients for their sites.
By tclarkent at 19:12 2 Oct 2009
Just got slapped today for the first time...How long do they expect you to pay $10 per click for every little thing...smh...
By wollowra at 22:49 4 Oct 2009
Hi Claire,
Some blackhat CPA marketers use Job ad sites to gain income via blackhat methods when people submit to the job ad. Google is looking at CPA very closely right now.
Troy
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