Does google pose a serious threat to affiliates

[EHubert]

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Regarding people posting a response to the effect that Google will eventually angle to become an affiliate themselves, that will never happen. Why would they give up guaranteed ad revenue(or a percentage thereof) for a chance at commission on a product that might not sell? Furthermore, the bidding system they have in place only encourages people to cut each other's throats to get their ads displayed and generate inflated ad prices. They don't want to kill the golden goose.

[PPC-Coach]

They're not about to move backwards on the food chain and change the way their whole business model. They make money regardless of sales or commissions. They provide the traffic, you pay for it, it's simple for them and makes them a ton of money. Plus there is no way in hell they could ever be in every niche that people are using their system for successfully because there's more to affiliate marketing then just putting up some ads with referal links on them.

[mattg]

Microsoft make the first move:

Microsoft To Offer Cash Back To Search Engine Users In Effort To Fight Google (links to Techcrunch)

Ok so it's a product directory not a web search - but if a product is what you're looking for & it does the job, why would you not use it?

The key here, as the article says, is that few searches have real value, but those that do can have significant value. They're what Microsoft want to steal from Google (and, by association, most of the readers on this forum).

If it works, why would Ggl not emulate it ... ?

[Rich]

I was just about to post about the same thing as I just spotted it on the BBC News - BBC NEWS | Technology | Microsoft offers cash back search

[Markup]

Hello all
Just like to say that I am delighted to be back among you all, and as I always did, I wish you all well!!
I‘ve been lurking for the last few weeks in the hope that someone with the knowhow (check you PMs mr QGJ) would change my avatar to http://www.officejockey.co.uk/images/avitar.gif
Every idea I have had to compliment what I have come to believe is a money making scheme by google has been covered in this thread.
But...
... so why not (seeing as though this engine appears to have all avenues blocked off) get together as a collective (think about it guys n gals– and think about the potential traffic– big firm us) and vote amongst ourselves on one or more search engines and then go on to promote them heavily (and visually perhaps) on our sites as an alternative to google. It might not make a great deal of difference in the short term but I happen to know from experience gained in another sphere that the strongest performing affiliates in the UK use this forum (even as lurkers until the subject calls for a bit of up front action) but in the long term it would show them that if they are set on a course that is set to disenfranchise a whole community (i.e the UK affiliate marketing community) then perhaps they might reconsider showing insults like the one that the Halfords search box highlighted – shame on you Halfords, you were born and educated (hopefully) long before google was even conceived as an (honest – ha ha) project.
Why have I come out from among the (lurker) shadows...
...because I thought that I could enter this arena on an equal footing with everyone else, I spent 3 weeks researching exactly what I wanted to do and went to the major search engines with what I thought was a fair strategy to win. Then though, because my site is not due for a full launch till early July, I decided to write to the engines and state that I was not interested in sales but would be appreciative of them letting me launch a campaign in addition to the ones I was already running that would allow mw to send traffic to a landing (its only a holding page officejockey.co.uk cheapest office supplies & consumables online.). I waited a couple of days and they came back with a very nice mail that says yes go ahead.
So I did and all was well, I was not converting to sales – that was never my intention – but I was pointing traffic(any and all traffic) to a certain message that I had on the page and I started to get some really good responses that have led to concrete deals between myself and others.
Next thing G tells me that 10 keywords are not showing for search and need to be optimised or upbidded. As I was busy I arranged for the bids to be lifted to keep them happy. The second I did, they came back with 248 keywords are not showing for search and need to be optimised or have the bids raised... okay, I raised these too and 10 mins later 179 keywords are deemed unsuitable for search unless their bids are increased. Let me be straight (“quality office supplies” at between 6 to 8 p seemed pretty fair to me( considering that I was not bothered about conversion on the main page content and only wanted to present a certain message to my page visitor but to go up in 7 increments to 25 p in 24 hours I see as a scam.
I am not the most technical of minds on this forum but if anyone has any ideas on how to make a stand against this kind of bullying I am willing to throw my all behind or beside them.
QGJ, if your about please change my avatar – cheers
Mark

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Sorry Mark ... I 'll check now :blush ... And will get sorted when i land on TerraFirmer and ask someone at Existem to sort as Mods don't have privileges to change these.

[Markup]

P

Only said it cause I knew you'd answer.

I did know though, that if you could you would.

Great to be engaging with you again Sir!!!

Best,
Mark

[tbp]

was not bothered about conversion on the main page content and only wanted to present a certain message to my page visitor but to go up in 7 increments to 25 p in 24 hours I see as a scam.

To be honest, I think you're lucky it only went up to 25p!

The times it happened to me it went from 9p to 50p, then to £2.50 and then to £5, which are totally ridiculous prices, and what annoyed me was that google deemed the site relevant enough to put it at a stable position in number 1 for natural search for the same keywords.

The second thing that annoyed me was buying a new similar domain, pointing it to exactly the same site and then removing the first domain fixed the problem and the bids went back down.

How can a site whose content was deemed irrelevant for a set of keywords, then go back down to normal prices for exactly the same keyword, with just a change in the domain names extension?

Personaly, I don't think theres anything you can do about it, short of shutting down your account and vowing never to use Google again, which doesn't really get you anywhere. Google don't care if you leave, its a molecule in he ocean to them, and they know enough people are making money still to avoid a mass revolt against it, so they know they have you over a barrel. They have no competition, so no problems for them there.

In the end they can pretty much do what they like.

The one thing I never understood though, is that I couldn't see the point behind it all. It didn't help their customers because it removed relevant ad's and spam still remained. It didn't help their profits because they lost paying customers. A couple of months later, and everyones set themselves back up. The quality of the sites hasn't changed because that won't bring the inflated prices back down, its just a case of setting up a new domain / adwords account.

I was very bitter about it at the time, as it seemed so pointless and was a lose lose situation for everyone. Months on with a clear head, I still can't see the point - I don't really think there is a logical explanation for it.

[Markup]

Hiya tbp

£2.50 - okay I was lucky in light of your own experience.

What narked me though, and it does now, was that I wrote them an actual letter explaining that although I did not expect conversion, I would appreciate it if they would let me run the campaign ahead of July (when the real site launches) on the grounds that any traffic that did arrive would see immediately that there were instantly recognisable office product suppliers that they could choose from and were thereby getting a measure of quality.

They were great about this and I was hovering around the 3p mark for a while. Now though, it looks like they are playing "lets see what he will go to in terms of bid price"

I think you said the right thing - what can you do about it?

There has to be some guy/gal sitting in an office somewhere though who is controlling the UK end of google (even if they have 50 bodies under them) and if there was a concerted effort by UK affiliates to say "okay we're gonna lose big time but this cant go on - just give us some clear guidelines) then something would give - I dunno, I'm certainly up for joining some kind of organisation interested in unity though, ESPECIALLY IF THEY SUPPLY BRICKS TO THROW AT GOOGLES WINDOWS

[tbp]

There has to be some guy/gal sitting in an office somewhere though who is controlling the UK end of google

I think this is the problem, in that there isn't really anyone in proper control.

It's got so big now, that like most large multinationals, it becomes divided internally and there is no proper communication between departments, and so no overall leadership. A lot of this is down to the level of secrecy for security, and information is deliberately withheld inside the company.

When the slap happened months ago, a lot of people who should of been in the know didn't know why it had happened, and there was talk inside Google of it being down to a technical error.

They now seem to be getting to the stage where they are becoming disorganised and mistakes are being made. Near the end of last year, I had an email from them strongly worded saying they were disgusted I had performed a chargeback on my account, and ordering me to pay. Only it wasn't for me, and contained another customers details. I`ve also heard the same from other people.

Another thing that bothers me is the adwords spam going around (the phishing attempts). Out of my 30 email domains, the only ones I`m getting the spam on are the 6 that i`ve used for adwords account. This shows it's not random, but how is a phishing scammer knowing the exact domains and email addresses that have been used for my adwords accounts. I always set up special ones for adwords accounts, that are only used for my Google accounts, and aren't put on the web anywhere or used to send messages. This says to me that theres been a leak somewhere in Google, and it worries me as they also hold my credit card info.

I think these companies start to falter when they get too big. Microsoft, love them or hate them were good at what they did. The last couple of years though they've been floundering and losing the plot. Their attempts at web services have been awful, like MSN search, Vista was massively delayed and has a lot of problems etc. It seems now that Google are starting to go the same way. I think a lot is complacency, they know they are top dog so think everything they do is right, and everyone else is wrong, and if anyone doesn't like it then they can lump it.

[Markup]

You're patently more experienced than I in the world of paid ads at this time tbp and I will go with you on all that you say about things going out of control when a company / org whatever gets ahead of itself in terms of size - but I have to jump in and defend MSN.

I took a girl on (daughters friend/mates friend/getting the head straight and all that sh'#e) she spent 3 months withdrawing daily from the account I gave her control of ( I spent my 4,274 nights in a prison bed knowing that that account would protect my kids in time to come - but that’s a story for my future blog :-)) and google shut my ads down the minute the payment was not there. I explained to MSN that my daughter was flying over from Ireland to restock the account and the accounts (ads) continued without hitch or falter so give me them every day. What do I see now, google looking for 25p for generic terms that are (after a fashion) represented on my site and within my H+M tags while MSN are content to take their 6p.

Can't or wont fault them tbp.

I get the phishing attempts too and the snaring attempts through various bank and financial contacts, I don't think they can do anything about this, it's down to us really.

Read a post of yours a couple of weeks ago where you helped (in damned great detail) some guy who was struggling with a script and thought you deserved a reply from an onlooker just to say BLOODY WELL DONE) but I still had my summit avitar up so did not waNt to post under false pretences but after clearing my change with QGJ, i feel I can now say, BLOODY WELL DONE!!!