OMG why are you letting H. Samuels banner SEO affiliateS?

[Top banana]

Just got this email

"From 1st July 2008 Ernest Jones & H. Samuel will be implementing a key change to their affiliate programs. Please take a few moments to read through this change and ensure you fully understand the implications.

H.Samuel and Ernest Jones will be amending their Terms & Conditions to no longer allow SEO affiliates to use Ernest Jones or H.Samuel brand misspells in URL’s, page titles, meta data and copy within the web pages.
Please ensure that your sites "

Clearly H Samuels have asked for this but that is becuase they dont understand SEO or affiliate marketing. Therefore, i should OMG job not to allow such silly rules to implemented. I dont think OMG is good network, and no my opinion of them is getting worst.

[fizzbird]

I don't think it's anything to do with OMG. I've had the same message from AW.

I don't see it as a major issue tbh and it will only upset those who use underhand and misleading methods.

[ash]

I don't see a problem banning mispellings of their brand names.

If you still want to optimise for them you can always do it with inbound links....

[drivetowin]

Ithink it's a mindless decision on the part of H Samuel and Ernest Jones - I'm just waiting for them to come out with 'but people doing SEO on misspells are taking traffic we would get anyway' - no they're not - if you are not catching the misspells yourself then you are not going to get the traffic - most people who misspell don't know that they have misspelt, so they won't try another spelling, they will just go somewhere else.

I think this is a cackhanded approach to try and stop the likes of barefruit - which shows H Samuel and/or their agency don't understand how barefruit work - changing the rules in this way won't stop barefruit - what they are doing is not SEO.

[loquax]

I'm undecided on this... on one hand I think perhaps it's heavy handed on the other if it means affiliates do something a little more indepth than "Merchant can also be spelt merchent marchent, marchant" etc etc as part of their descriptions and content - then that might be a good thing in raising affiliate content quality?

Jason

[fizzbird]

Originally Posted by drivetowin I'm just waiting for them to come out with 'but people doing SEO on misspells are taking traffic we would get anyway' - no they're not

Yes they are.

A common mis-spelling search will either go H Samuel or 'did you mean H Samuel?' or to a voucher code site.

Do H Samuel issue voucher codes?
No

[Keith]

I can see that they would want to reduce the mis-spells of their brand name but somebody will mop up the traffic searching on the mis-spell anyway, it may as well be them or their affiliates.

Or you will be seeing text like this cropping up.

"Looking for an engagement present for Samual and Earnest well your search is over here at www.anotherjewellers.com we can..."

[confuscius]

h samual - Google Search -vouchercodes, myvouchercodes, hotukdeals, etc - exactly how will they get those pages removed from Google? 50p says the pages will still be there in 6 months time and none of those affiliates will have been banned.

Complete farce, imo.

[drivetowin]

I think the important point here is the copy within the webpage bit - so that means if you make a genuine spelling mistake in your web copy then they won't pay commission - so better all get updating our spellcheckers then.

[ian]

And don't forget to put up notices on your forum to make sure anyone leaving a review for HSamuels checks their spelling.

All that will happen is people will promote their competitors instead. Not a good move by Ernist Jones and h Samual imo

How long before this thread comes up #1 for all these brand name typos?

[fizzbird]

Originally Posted by confuscius 50p says the pages will still be there in 6 months time and none of those affiliates will have been banned.

You are probably right - if the networks are policing this policy then they will (as usual) turn a blind eye to this kind of thing. After all, what's their incentive to increase the merchant's natural search performance?