Follow Me on Twitter
Add to Technorati Favorites
Friend Me on Facebook
Add me on Sphinn
So apparently yesterday Google went through and did one of their mega slaps on affiliates. I was fortunate enough to have no idea it happened, because none of my sites were slapped. All my QS held up as great and I actually saw much greater profit margins because many affiliates were slapped, ads taken down, allowing my CPC price to fall.
It’s pretty ridiculous either way, I know a guy who has held a site in the #1 position with a 28% CTR for over 5 months…slapped like he was nothing.
Anyways, if you want a quick fix just re-upload everything. You may have to work on getting CPC price down naturally again, but you do the best you can.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Glad to hear your campaigns were all ok, plus a little extra $ in nice as you competition got hit.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:26 am
None of my campaigns were harmed. I’m still seeing landing pages with no nav and no content work just fine, but if they aren’t on a domain with any other good content the Google seems to slap we around. If they are on a site already included in the index that gets some natural traffic they seem to do OK, even if they aren’t linked to from anywhere on the page.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:27 am
How much profit would Google lose annually if there were zero affiliates?
Makes me want to say S them and stick with Yahoo and MSN.
July 10th, 2008 at 11:32 am
what do you mean by reupload everything?
July 10th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
He means literally, copy the campaign, delete the old one, and re upload the old data (keywords, ads, etc) from scratch
July 10th, 2008 at 11:48 am
U need som Schadenfreude!
July 10th, 2008 at 11:50 am
I have tried uploading before after slaps come around… It does not seem to help, at least anymore. Can you elaborate/verify that this still works?
July 10th, 2008 at 12:45 pm
I got hit hard on this one. Campaigns that were running great for months with great QS and .02-.03 min bids now have poor QS with $1 min bids… ouch.
Bought a new domain, changed my content, and reuploaded everything and so far so good. However I lost all my good history and now my traffic is 1/10 what it was , ad rankings super low, and much higher cpc. What a shame.
July 10th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
Yea… I got slapped for one of my main campaigns but I fixed it already… Phew…
July 10th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
how did u fix it?
July 10th, 2008 at 7:04 pm
I would assume tweaking and/or re uploading?
July 10th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
Just happy Google is less than 20% of my income now :)
July 10th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Paul, do you know why they are targeting only certain people?
July 10th, 2008 at 4:48 pm
Do you think the timing has anything to do with the Top Affiliate Challenge going on in Lincoln, NE?
July 10th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
God, slaps suck. I’m happy you weren’t hit, but many of my friends were, a lot of people have to adjust now..
July 10th, 2008 at 7:25 pm
Oh man, I didn’t know that it happened yesterday, that’s horrible! Good thing you were spared a miserable fate from the gods of Google, eh?
July 10th, 2008 at 9:47 pm
Man..
I was thrown to #1 to 300+ in overnight :(
July 10th, 2008 at 9:57 pm
So does anyone know what Google looks for when searching for campaigns to Slap?
July 11th, 2008 at 12:13 am
I was one of the ones hit. My main campaign. I’ve had great quality score for months, CTR in the 10%+, and good conversions. My site even has lots of content and navigation, with some organic traffic.
I makes no sense. I’ve written to complain but nothing yet.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:06 am
It sucks to rely on one service.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:59 am
We got around this time too. But it looks like they hit direct campaigns as well this time. One of our students got smacked with a 40k a month direct campaign. We’re still investigating..
To comment on “what they are looking for” I think that it’s just manual flags, that got processed with this update..
July 11th, 2008 at 3:58 am
Funny picture, ha!
July 11th, 2008 at 5:12 am
The girl looks like she enjoyed it!
July 11th, 2008 at 4:47 am
Talk about timing. I had just finished about 20 hours of research into a new niche, built a brand spanking new campaign and watched it launch to a string of “greats”. .05-.50 keywords. $18 lead. Converting at around 12%. Decent traffic. I’m drooling on myself.
I didn’t even get 24 hours worth out of it. BAM!
I’ve tried everything I can think of (new domain, new campaign, new account even), no enchilada. I think Giggle’s mad at the entire vertical, not just my little campaign. Oh well.
This is not a game for the faint of heart.
I’ll keep it paused for a few days and let things settle down.
July 11th, 2008 at 7:26 am
I clicked through from my reader to say exactly the opposite that the two jerks above me are saying. NOT a funny picture, it’s an offensive picture. Please choose something more appropriate next time.
July 11th, 2008 at 1:52 pm
It’s funny that he’s talking about the Google slap and has that picture. It would be equally as funny with two guys or two girls or maybe little kids. Get over it. It’s a picture…with actors/models… Nobody was hurt in the creation of this post. Thank you.
July 12th, 2008 at 11:25 am
the picture is very very funny and thats what makes this post a funny one so what is the problem here?
July 12th, 2008 at 6:02 am
LOL Paul, have you read this?
http://www.nickycakes.com/goober-camp-the-pathetic-dregs-of-affiliate-marketing-society/
July 12th, 2008 at 11:18 am
wow hahahaha i love that picture you got there and to tell you thats how google slaps people since they know they are the market leader what the fuck? :D
July 12th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
whew* glad you were lucky :)
Is there anything that determines which sites get slapped and which ones don’t?
July 12th, 2008 at 9:09 pm
bad news for others but good for you…
which products are you promoting ?
July 13th, 2008 at 12:42 am
My bum marketing articles went from 1st to 2nd page :(
Google Really Slaps hard… lol my cheeks are red!
July 14th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
It could be worse, Yahoo has begun rolling out new minimum bids on keywords. Some words we have been using for years at less then 50 cents a click have new minimums of..ready for this over 18 dollars! Wow, if I get 18 a lead, and pay 18 dollars a click..one thinks I am doomed. They did this for over 5K of our keywords and that was just in one vertical. Day by Day, we get notified of more min bids at ridiculous levels. It seems there new brilliant strategy is catering only to the large clients who can afford ridiculous bids and eliminating the small people. Great idea Yahoo..sure that will fly!
July 15th, 2008 at 12:49 pm
This is why I love SEO more than PPC.
July 16th, 2008 at 5:16 am
I need to becareful more, I hope my QS is good on my campaigns.
EliteCommission Affiliate Network
July 20th, 2008 at 7:27 pm
Hopefully, Google wont merge with Yahoo or the Google Slap will also give us a Yahoo backhand. Seriously, both engines are on a mission to eliminate affiliates so that they don’t lose bigger clients who don’t care about ROI and only care about branding. This may mean the slow decline of PPC affiliates. I hope everyone here, including Uber, have backup plans. Keep going to school on the side Uber!
July 21st, 2008 at 8:23 am
Funny thing - it happened to just one of my ad groups… clicks went from .05 to $10. Everything else was fine. WEIRD!
July 21st, 2008 at 5:22 pm
I’m already hurting from the Yahoo backhand as more of my keywords are seeing MUCH higher minimums.
July 24th, 2008 at 7:45 pm
Great interview on webmaster radio on this topic.
http://www.webmasterradio.fm/Affiliate-Marketing/Affiliate-Marketing-Insider/Google-Slap-on-Affiliate-Marketing.htm