Google Slap for Affiliate Review Sites
It happened again, this time the Google Slap hit Affiliate Review sites. How did I notice? Firstly I observed a traffic spike on one of my review sites (a sign that some competitors disappeared) and a few days later the Google quality score for one of my other review sites dropped from 9-10 to 1 over night. Then Perry Marshall mentioned it in an email a few days ago.
My review site – also having real reviews and providing value – was slapped although it used cloaked affiliate links. Some people think that it hit mainly review sites with lots of affiliate links, but I’m not sure. I could well be that Google focused on certain niches they didn’t like. Is there a solution? Read on…
Why the latest Google slap is a good thing and gives us Affiliate Marketers great opportunities
There were so many crap “review” sites out there from people who never bought the product and did not provide any value at all to visitors. It’s good to have those removed and increase reputation of “real” review sites and affiliate marketing in general.
Less competition from lazy affiliates who just use a day trading business model without building a real business.
Do I still recommend using review sites?
Yes, I still like review sites (they make me a nice 5 figure passive income every month) because they target buyers. Here’s how to benefit from the latest Google slap and make more profits from the opportunity:
- Buy the products you’re writing a review about or ask for a review copy
- Study the product and identify gaps -> create a useful bonus to fill the gap
For a limited time James Schramko is making Affiliate Accelerate available for free. In his video James explains in more detail how to create affiliate bonus offers. Click here to download Affiliate Accelerating Video
- Let visitors comment your review and share their experiences (social proof and user generated content)
- Be different, determine your USP
- Build a list, start collecting optins (e.g. give away a valuable report)
- Use WordPress to build your review sites, I use FirePow 2.0 to create and manage all my blogs from one place. The Google quality score for my WP landing pages is normally between 8-10 (which means lower CPC and higher positions).
- Write a real review with interesting content (not just 3 sentences). Your site needs to have enough content to not look like a thin affiliate page.
- Cloak your affiliate links
- Optimize your review pages for Search Engine, don’t just rely on PPC traffic
- Use other PPC Search Engines like Yahoo Search, MSN, 7Search
- Diversify your business, don’t rely just on review sites, start creating your own products (why not creating a sperate page for the bonus product you offer and sell it?)
Now is the time to follow these tips and start dominating your niche markets. Let me know how it works…
Category: Affiliate Marketing, PPC
[...] Slap as those who do not use cloaked links. However, there is at least one instance reported by IMOverdrive.com where a review site using cloaking was penalized. Do not rely on cloaking alone to protect your [...]
Great post. One question though. Does this slap impact BOTH organic listings (content sites) and adwords landing pages…or is it mainly directed at just adwords related pages?
It only affected adwords landing pages so far. Based on my latest research the slap only occurred in certain niches. Although different sources report that affiliate links are the main reason I’m not really sure that this is the case.