Thursday, April 7, 2011

What does Google think of thin affiliates ?

I would recommend reading the whole of the Help Center page that Squibble linked to -- Google has no problem with affiliate programs, but we do expect that the website provides something unique and compelling of its own. The majority of the content should not be coming from other sites, it should be something that users would want to visit and recommend on its own. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=2b49f21127bda467&hl=en

One factor that is very important for us is unique and compelling content. It might be good to ask yourself: How does this site provide unique and compelling value to your users? What makes it stand out above other shops offering the same products -- or even above the original source where users are sent to buy these products? http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=32d2e8f6699a956a&hl=en

As mentioned by some of the others here, I think it would make sense to work on making your site as unique and compelling as possible. At the moment, it appears that a relatively large part of your site is concentrated on ebay affiliate content, so it would be good to make sure to balance that with more high quality content. That said, if you feel that your site is not ranking where it should be and you are confident that it complies with our webmaster guidelines and provides unique and compelling content to your visitors, I would recommend submitting a reconsideration request. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=3c660de9c2fc94d6&hl=en

Additionally, it seems that your site is partly a collection of affiliate offers. From our point of view, one very important item for sites like that is to make sure that they are build on unique and compelling content. For instance, it makes little sense to send users to a site that just points them to affiliate links and lets them click through -- it's much more interesting for users to be sent to something that provides value of its own. A good way to judge that for yourself would be to ask yourself if users would find your site compelling enough on its own (without affiliate offers) to return to and to refer their friends to.http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=55cdf3fc241200aa&hl=en

One element that is very important to us is that a site has unique and compelling content. Looking at your site, it appears to mostly point to auctions on auction sites. I'm certain that I must be missing the relevant parts, but it's possible that search engines are only seeing the auction listings as well. If that is the case, I'd recommend removing the shared content and focusing your efforts on the unique and compelling parts of your site. I'm sure that over time users and search engines will come to value your site as a trusted resource.http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=7f8fef9a6fcd2ec7&hl=en

You want to keep in mind that both the users and our algorithms prefer unique and compelling content. See the following Help Center article on this subject: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66361

In case of affiliate sites, the webmaster should make sure to have elements in the pages that are unique and valuable for the users, give a good reason for them to visit the site. With websites like that, generally my advice is to take note of the Webmaster Guidelines ( http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 ), change the content and/or site if needed and then submit a reconsideration request through Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843 ).http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6c2c1b377c7072e3&hl=en

One general thing I would however try to do is to make sure that your pages have enough unique and compelling content in comparison to the content (affiliate listings) that you're pulling in as well. Overall, I only found a small number of those pages (eg >Zeiss Ikon, Contaflex (TLR) "For China"< ), but that would be something I'd recommend watching out for. Generally speaking, there's no reason to "hide" affiliate links. Affiliate links are not bad :) -- provided that they do not make up a large part of your content. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=37119022ebbbd46e&hl=en

Looking through your site, I'd really recommend working hard on providing unique and compelling content, as much as you can. While it's interesting to browse the auctions that are running elsewhere, I'd recommend not building your site around content like that -- build it around content that users are interested in and provide something which throws them off of their chairs, something which fascinates them, something that keeps them coming back to YOUR site and most of all, something they wouldn't want to wait to recommend to their friends.

If after some time after you receive a confirmation like this things do not change for your site, I would assume that there are still issues that need to be resolved. So in your case, I would definitely continue working on the website, perhaps not focusing so much on adding content from other sites and instead working to create awesome, fascinating, unique and compelling content for your users. Make something that people will want to come back to directly, every day. Make something that users can't find elsewhere, something that sets your site apart from all the others. Another way of thinking about it is asking yourself what would *you* want to find on the web about this topic? What kind of content would get you to talk about the website when having a beer (or tea) with friends? http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=210aaacdbc0e9e5f&hl=en

Styling of your tags wouldn't be a reason for the website not to be indexed however. Looking at your site, one thing worth mentioning is that our algorithms prefer unique and compelling content, so that's what I'd recommend working hard on. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=51032657f33ac44e&hl=en

In general, what is really important for us on a site that is affiliate-focused is that there is sufficient unique and compelling content on the site -- that it can stand on its own even without the affiliate content and optimally, that the affiliate content adds value as well. Clicking through your site I do see quite a bit of content, but most of it seems to be secondary to your affiliate form. When I try to enter a local zip code into the form, I don't really get anywhere. Is it US-only? Filling it out with an example US-based address, I just get a small collection of generic affiliate links.

One thing I would recommend for a site like yours is to make sure that your unique and compelling content is the focus throughout the site. If visitors come to look for your content, then they should see that content in a clear and straight-forward way (for example, if I search for the dangers of texting while driving, and 2/3rds of the resulting page is filled with an insurance ad, then that would make the result much less interesting to me). If your content is not that unique and compelling, then I would recommend working on that (I'm guessing you already have, which is great!). http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6dcd2428eb4fc691&hl=en

Going through your site and seeing what's being indexed, one thing that strikes me as a bit low on unique and compelling content (Google has a fancy for that -- our users are pretty demanding :-)) are the pages where you just aggregate content from other shopping and auction sites. While price comparisons may be interesting, I don't think it makes much sense for a user to land on a page like that only to click through to another site to actually get what they're looking for. Two ways to change that could be to prevent those aggregation pages from being indexed or to add significant unique and compelling content to them. In my opinion, the rest of your site does have a lot of neat and valuable content (I'm no expert in your field, but that would be my guess), so perhaps focusing on the existing, unique & compelling pages is the best strategy http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=7b157c805421e7ca&hl=en

It looks like the changes you're seeing here may be from an algorithmic change. As part of our recent algorithmic changes (which the outside world sometimes refers to as the "May Day update" because it happened primarily in May), our algorithms are assessing the site differently. This is a ranking change, not any sort of manual spam penalty. You can hear more about this change in Matt's video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6CtBmaIQM Matt mentions in the video that it would be good to go back, ask yourself: Have I got the highest-quality site? Am I showing up for the most relevant searches? What sort of thing can I do in terms of adding great content, making sure that people consider me an authority, that I'm not just matching something that's off-topic, or that users won't find all that useful? Are your pages the most relevant pages for those topics? If not, what could you do to change that? Working on making sure that your site is of a high-quality and has unique and compelling content is certainly a good idea, and something I would always recommend working on, regardless of the site's current standing. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=48e76a554b0cab0c&hl=en

Looking at your site and the various other sites that offer the same product, I would strongly recommend that you work on strong, unique and compelling content. I understand that this is difficult in an area that is somewhat medical, but it's vital for a website in a competitive area that it provides something which users want and expect to find in the search results -- something which users can recommend to their friends directly (not just the product which they can get from 100s of other websites). http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=5cf11235394e14ed&hl=en

As Squibble mentioned, there are a lot of copies of the same content out there. If you're selling the same products (even if it were a "physical" store), then I would strongly recommend working hard to make sure that the content on your site is of high-quality, unique and compelling. Squibble mentioned the appropriate Help Center article about this (and I imagine it would also apply to the articles that Will spotted), but overall, you should not be doing that just because someone might review the text and check it, you should be doing it to stand out from the rest in the search results. Our algorithms work hard to reduce the amount of duplication in search results, so if you can make sure that your content is really high-quality, unique and valuable to users, then that will make a difference.

Additionally, as you mentioned the 2 million links ... keep in mind that we discourage links that are bought, sold, traded or otherwise artificially gained. If some of those 2 million links were to fall into those categories, then it's possible that they're no longer being valued as they might have in the past.

So in your situation, I'd recommend working to make sure that all of your site is as unique as possible (and keep your users in mind; don't just swap words around in the hope that the algorithms won't notice). Should you find any issues with regards to the Webmaster Guidelines that you have resolved, then it would also be good to shoot off a reconsideration request, detailing the changes that you've made. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=470306ff139aea76&hl=en

One factor that is very important for us is unique and compelling content. It might be good to ask yourself: How does this site provide unique and compelling value to your users? What makes it stand out above other shops offering the same products -- or even above the original source where users are sent to buy these products? http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=32d2e8f6699a956a&hl=en

As mentioned by some of the others here, I think it would make sense to work on making your site as unique and compelling as possible. At the moment, it appears that a relatively large part of your site is concentrated on ebay affiliate content, so it would be good to make sure to balance that with more high quality content. That said, if you feel that your site is not ranking where it should be and you are confident that it complies with our webmaster guidelines and provides unique and compelling content to your visitors, I would recommend submitting a reconsideration request. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=3c660de9c2fc94d6&hl=en

Additionally, it seems that your site is partly a collection of affiliate offers. From our point of view, one very important item for sites like that is to make sure that they are build on unique and compelling content. For instance, it makes little sense to send users to a site that just points them to affiliate links and lets them click through -- it's much more interesting for users to be sent to something that provides value of its own. A good way to judge that for yourself would be to ask yourself if users would find your site compelling enough on its own (without affiliate offers) to return to and to refer their friends to.http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=55cdf3fc241200aa&hl=en

One element that is very important to us is that a site has unique and compelling content. Looking at your site, it appears to mostly point to auctions on auction sites. I'm certain that I must be missing the relevant parts, but it's possible that search engines are only seeing the auction listings as well. If that is the case, I'd recommend removing the shared content and focusing your efforts on the unique and compelling parts of your site. I'm sure that over time users and search engines will come to value your site as a trusted resource.http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=7f8fef9a6fcd2ec7&hl=en

You want to keep in mind that both the users and our algorithms prefer unique and compelling content. See the following Help Center article on this subject: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=66361

In case of affiliate sites, the webmaster should make sure to have elements in the pages that are unique and valuable for the users, give a good reason for them to visit the site. With websites like that, generally my advice is to take note of the Webmaster Guidelines ( http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35769 ), change the content and/or site if needed and then submit a reconsideration request through Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35843 ).http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6c2c1b377c7072e3&hl=en

One general thing I would however try to do is to make sure that your pages have enough unique and compelling content in comparison to the content (affiliate listings) that you're pulling in as well. Overall, I only found a small number of those pages (eg >Zeiss Ikon, Contaflex (TLR) "For China"< ), but that would be something I'd recommend watching out for. Generally speaking, there's no reason to "hide" affiliate links. Affiliate links are not bad :) -- provided that they do not make up a large part of your content. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=37119022ebbbd46e&hl=en

Looking through your site, I'd really recommend working hard on providing unique and compelling content, as much as you can. While it's interesting to browse the auctions that are running elsewhere, I'd recommend not building your site around content like that -- build it around content that users are interested in and provide something which throws them off of their chairs, something which fascinates them, something that keeps them coming back to YOUR site and most of all, something they wouldn't want to wait to recommend to their friends.

If after some time after you receive a confirmation like this things do not change for your site, I would assume that there are still issues that need to be resolved. So in your case, I would definitely continue working on the website, perhaps not focusing so much on adding content from other sites and instead working to create awesome, fascinating, unique and compelling content for your users. Make something that people will want to come back to directly, every day. Make something that users can't find elsewhere, something that sets your site apart from all the others. Another way of thinking about it is asking yourself what would *you* want to find on the web about this topic? What kind of content would get you to talk about the website when having a beer (or tea) with friends? http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=210aaacdbc0e9e5f&hl=en

Styling of your tags wouldn't be a reason for the website not to be indexed however. Looking at your site, one thing worth mentioning is that our algorithms prefer unique and compelling content, so that's what I'd recommend working hard on. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=51032657f33ac44e&hl=en

In general, what is really important for us on a site that is affiliate-focused is that there is sufficient unique and compelling content on the site -- that it can stand on its own even without the affiliate content and optimally, that the affiliate content adds value as well. Clicking through your site I do see quite a bit of content, but most of it seems to be secondary to your affiliate form. When I try to enter a local zip code into the form, I don't really get anywhere. Is it US-only? Filling it out with an example US-based address, I just get a small collection of generic affiliate links.

One thing I would recommend for a site like yours is to make sure that your unique and compelling content is the focus throughout the site. If visitors come to look for your content, then they should see that content in a clear and straight-forward way (for example, if I search for the dangers of texting while driving, and 2/3rds of the resulting page is filled with an insurance ad, then that would make the result much less interesting to me). If your content is not that unique and compelling, then I would recommend working on that (I'm guessing you already have, which is great!). http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=6dcd2428eb4fc691&hl=en

Going through your site and seeing what's being indexed, one thing that strikes me as a bit low on unique and compelling content (Google has a fancy for that -- our users are pretty demanding :-)) are the pages where you just aggregate content from other shopping and auction sites. While price comparisons may be interesting, I don't think it makes much sense for a user to land on a page like that only to click through to another site to actually get what they're looking for. Two ways to change that could be to prevent those aggregation pages from being indexed or to add significant unique and compelling content to them. In my opinion, the rest of your site does have a lot of neat and valuable content (I'm no expert in your field, but that would be my guess), so perhaps focusing on the existing, unique & compelling pages is the best strategy http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=7b157c805421e7ca&hl=en

It looks like the changes you're seeing here may be from an algorithmic change. As part of our recent algorithmic changes (which the outside world sometimes refers to as the "May Day update" because it happened primarily in May), our algorithms are assessing the site differently. This is a ranking change, not any sort of manual spam penalty. You can hear more about this change in Matt's video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ6CtBmaIQM Matt mentions in the video that it would be good to go back, ask yourself: Have I got the highest-quality site? Am I showing up for the most relevant searches? What sort of thing can I do in terms of adding great content, making sure that people consider me an authority, that I'm not just matching something that's off-topic, or that users won't find all that useful? Are your pages the most relevant pages for those topics? If not, what could you do to change that? Working on making sure that your site is of a high-quality and has unique and compelling content is certainly a good idea, and something I would always recommend working on, regardless of the site's current standing. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=48e76a554b0cab0c&hl=en

Looking at your site and the various other sites that offer the same product, I would strongly recommend that you work on strong, unique and compelling content. I understand that this is difficult in an area that is somewhat medical, but it's vital for a website in a competitive area that it provides something which users want and expect to find in the search results -- something which users can recommend to their friends directly (not just the product which they can get from 100s of other websites). http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=5cf11235394e14ed&hl=en

As Squibble mentioned, there are a lot of copies of the same content out there. If you're selling the same products (even if it were a "physical" store), then I would strongly recommend working hard to make sure that the content on your site is of high-quality, unique and compelling. Squibble mentioned the appropriate Help Center article about this (and I imagine it would also apply to the articles that Will spotted), but overall, you should not be doing that just because someone might review the text and check it, you should be doing it to stand out from the rest in the search results. Our algorithms work hard to reduce the amount of duplication in search results, so if you can make sure that your content is really high-quality, unique and valuable to users, then that will make a difference.

Additionally, as you mentioned the 2 million links ... keep in mind that we discourage links that are bought, sold, traded or otherwise artificially gained. If some of those 2 million links were to fall into those categories, then it's possible that they're no longer being valued as they might have in the past.

So in your situation, I'd recommend working to make sure that all of your site is as unique as possible (and keep your users in mind; don't just swap words around in the hope that the algorithms won't notice). Should you find any issues with regards to the Webmaster Guidelines that you have resolved, then it would also be good to shoot off a reconsideration request, detailing the changes that you've made. http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=470306ff139aea76&hl=en

8 comments:

  1. I think you're on the borderline of keyword stuffing "unique and compelling" with this page, but hey, blame JohnMu. Anyway, nice resource.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This article was just terrible, seems like the whole thing is scraped and spinned...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Dear Anonymous,

    You are right as the content has been clearly copied from Webmaster Central forum but you are wrong in saying 'spinned' as it has not been altered in any way.

    ReplyDelete
  4. borderline :) This is a perfect example for keyword stuffing. I came from the google forums to see something "unique and compelling". But i never thought that it was so literal.

    ReplyDelete
  5. When you link to something from google forums and being a hard advocate of google's philosophy, you should set an example of this page by making it unique and compelling though you aggregate it from webmaster central.

    But this is a huge disappointment and i am not even sure why you link to this as it only reflects badly on your profile.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous(s) -

    Thank you for taking the trouble to post your feedback. I shall take note of your wise words and also the webmaster guidelines should I ever seek search engine ranking for this content.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Yes, This article was just terrible.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Ironic, I have to agree - very bad article. I had to do a double take to see if they had accidentally repeated paragraphs and then all I seemed to hear was "unique and compelling content" reverberating over and over again with what does read like spun jargon - even though it's probably unique but definitely generic and general.
    But that's small fry, if you want the mother of all hilarious irony - check out this website: www.google.com . I've run this through the google webmaster guide and found - No unique and compelling content, actually the site is very very thin on content and just has one search box, which then leads to pages of duplicate content, none of which is unique. To me this looks like a thin affiliate site at best.
    Also if you try doing a search for buying something online, Google Shopping results will often appear in the SERP. What are these results? affiliate links, nothing more nothing less - no unique and compelling content.
    Perhaps this is the real problem, anything that serves as a resource for users to compare options online (usually affiliate) are deemed as competition to Google and surprise surprise will not rank.
    Google is increasingly becoming one of the worlds best examples of anti trust, abusing power, hypocrisy and false ethics.
    Probably about time Google practice what they preach or at least respect and allow others to do as they do. If not their brand value will fall into a downward spiral that will be too late to do something about when they probably realise they need to. It's simply greed and abuse of power.

    ReplyDelete