You're having a laff! Merchant bends rules on SEO practice... do me a favour...

**d33man** · 26-05-11

So I found out a site I help out on was told today by a merchant that works on a very popular network, they no longer wished our site to appear in the SERPS for their brand term. In fact the site in question ranks 4th... no big deal. Furthermore there isn't huge traffic from this keyword. However sales for that merchant have steadily increased since the turn of the year, as we've increasingly improved things within the site.

Now the merchant has pinned this on that particular keyword and asked us to remove our site from the SERPs from appearing for that search within a few days else we'd not be paid commission.... whatever

Anyway they've now come back and stated that we cannot appear in the top 10 for around 50-100 keywords, including competitors (WTF), generic keywords (WTF) and cannot use the brand term in our URL structures.

I have no real issue, if this is their position but consider this. Firstly, we could simply send our links to a competitor who'd be more than happy to take the traffic. Secondly by stopping affiliates from filling in the gaps of their poor SEO, are they simply allowing competitors to fill the gap? Who wins? They don't, and neither does the affiliate.

Also why would they be concerned about a p4 site in the SERPs - surely if users are not only CLICKING into our site, but also BUYING from it too, we're doing what affiliates are supposed to be doing? If users don't click their site which is in p1 surely that means they're doing something wrong.

For us to comply to what they want is going to take a huge effort and right now it looks easier for us to simply switch links to a competitor. I'd not want to fall out with a merchant like this but what else do we do?

I'd love to hear from merchants, networks and affiliates on this, it really would help us all to understand things better - FYI I've been on the merchant side of the fence here and the view we took was a)getting the sale was better than not getting the sale and b)if affiliates were SEO'ing well, we'd work hard to SEO better....

thanks, D

**Mogga** · 26-05-11

I don't think you have any choice...

It's a pretty silly thing they're asking. You should tell them to write to google

**d33man** · 26-05-11

thanks Mogga yes that'd be good, ask Google to customise the top 10 results for them perhaps....my point is that if customers choose to click an aff site over the merchants surely they should do better

**Mogga** · 26-05-11

Yeah I'm not sure where they'd write to:

this address might be the one

The elves at Google Search Tweakers
17 Google mansions
Dream Like State
54321

**Cheapdvds** · 26-05-11

just tell to stop being silly and change the pages to send the traffic to another merchant.

**d33man** · 26-05-11

Originally Posted by Cheapdvds

just tell to stop being silly and change the pages to send the traffic to another merchant.

I am tempted to do so just wanted to ensure I've not missed something. I do feel affiliates get the raw deal too often

**Cheapdvds** · 26-05-11

doug would say "u control the traffic" that traffic is urs and it is upto u where u send it , maybe they should hire a better SEO company

**gadget** · 26-05-11

WTF. Don't mess about, tell us who the Merchant is .. it'd be the funniest thing to see how they'd squirm out of this PR disaster. Yet another merchant who has no respect for the hard work you've put into the site. I say name them!

**Tawnyfrog** · 26-05-11

What absolutely ridiculous demands - what kind of thicko has demanded this??

**d33man** · 26-05-11

Originally Posted by gadget

WTF. Don't mess about, tell us who the Merchant is .. it'd be the funniest thing to see how they'd squirm out of this PR disaster. Yet another merchant who has no respect for the hard work you've put into the site. I say name them!

as an affiliate we'll respect the merchant... for now...

**d33man** · 26-05-11

if it helps, they're a travel merchant. if they press ahead and do not back down i will name them as in any case, their other affiliates will find out as they plan to insert this clause into their agreement... i'm also awaiting feedback from the network on this and will post up the responses...

thanks

**hpops** · 26-05-11

Ridiculous request - the generic term thing in particular is absurd (although it all is really)
The only thing they've really got any basis in asking is you to not use the brand in the url structure - but even thats crazy as a truck load of bees

**Travel Pixel** · 26-05-11

if it helps, they're a travel merchant.

Really?

Drop me a PM with their name please....

**Paul Smith** · 26-05-11

Reminds me of this thread: Over Optimizing Organic Search Results

**wilwak** · 26-05-11

Originally Posted by d33man

if it helps, they're a travel merchant.

What a crazy thing to ask of you!! They sound like real amateurs.

I work heavily with most of the travel merchnats. I too would love to know who they are.

They need a quiet word I think.