From Thin To Fat - Plans To Beat The Latest AdWords Squeeze

[Qui Gon Jinn]

On one site we are trialling with dummy links, some https links are getting indexed. In natural search for a few instances some are linking/going directly to the targeted site with all the targets site meta details.

The other way may be to redesign your sites to contain no aff links at all, just content, and point these sites to your aff sites.

Interesting idea

[purple]

The other way may be to redesign your sites to contain no aff links at all, just content, and point these sites to your aff sites.

If this worked would this not effect conversion rates, as it is another click before customer gets to merchants site

[Qui Gon Jinn]

yes, i dunno if it will help protect your fat site whilst only the thin one suffers

[crazihos]

The other way may be to redesign your sites to contain no aff links at all, just content, and point these sites to your aff sites

Could you not link to your other affiliate site and have that site use a redirect to take the user the merchant so that the user still only has one click to get there or can google spot that?

[ian-d]

Surely google can spot a redirect! I think the only way around this is to develop generic websites that cover a multitude of products. They will never be as SEO friendly but can still rank well. I'm setting up a new site at the moment, going to try different strategies, see if any work!

[stu-art]

I should give credit to Affi for the 'sites with no affiliate links pointing to main affiliate site' idea. It should work in principle, plus you are linking from relevant sources which can only help the affiliate site. I know it's another click, but it's better than no clicks!

I do wonder if hosting the sites on the same server would give the game away though, it might be better to at least have different IPs. I read somewhere about keeping the sites on different 'C' class IPs although it could just be waffle.

[tonyr]

tbp said:

But it means that I can't say as adwords has gone, i`ll work on my seo and get more traffic that way. I`m already at the top, so can't go any higher, and unfortunately there seems to be quite a big difference between being top for Adwords and being top in the natural search.

That's a worry. I didn't realise it was like that. Do people buy more from the PPC ads than they do from the organic sites?

If that's the case we better get them shopping carts installed!

[tbp]

Do people buy more from the PPC ads than they do from the organic sites?

I always thought that PPC didn't offer much of an advantage over natural sense, but I was biased as I tended to go for natural search results over PPC results, reasoning that its quality that got the site to number 1 rather than just having deep pockets.

However, when I set up my PPC campaign within a week I was proved wrong. In my case PPC generated a lot more traffic than being number 1 in the natural results, and it also converted a lot better. As soon as my account was slapped, my sales dropped off instantly.

As you say it is worrying, as I said i`m at number 1 so can't improve there, but I`d now take a decent PPC position over that anyday.

So far - touch wood - my account has been ok today, and sales have improved again.

Thats why i`ve made such a fuss over this though, as PPC is so now so important to me. Also, I feel that when I`m paying for a service I would be entitled to some sort of warning that the service was going to cease.

In the real world, if you were paying for a regular service, you wouldn't expect the service to just suddenly stop without any warning. I know the net is different from the real world, but it's still a pretty shoddy way to treat your customers.

It just worries me that my account is going to be slapped again, as unfortunately there is just no alternative that matches PPC on google.

[KirstyM]

The big G is a worry, so I'd like to contribute to this thread by giving an example of a small site of mine which deals with a single product, is number 1 for most of its target terms in Google, and has survived the slap.

Vaginal Dilator Information & Articles: Vaginal Dilators UK - VaginalDilator.co.uk
(medical product!)

I direct all my PPC traffic to the home page of the site, which doesn't have any affiliate links on it. Despite the fact the site is long overdue for a makeover, the conversion rates are just fine.

I hope this helps!

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Certainly Niche

Definition: A cranny, hollow, or crevice, as in rock.

[tonyr]

Kirsty said:

I direct all my PPC traffic to the home page of the site, which doesn't have any affiliate links on it.

That sounds like a good idea, maybe the QS bot only checks the landing page and not the other pages?

I found another sneaky way to get a slapped domain up and running again. Create a new campaign in your existing account and use the option to copy over the campai