I’m sure many of you read my the post I made a while back as I was delighted I’d sorted out my Google Duplicate Content issues. My traffic rose nicely, and has remained at a reasonable level. However, after a few weeks of waiting for all of my pages to return to the index, I’ve been forced to an unfortunate conclusion – there was more than one problem!!

Doctor, Doctor… I Think My Site Has A Terrible Illness, It’s a Shadow of its Former Self!

*sigh* Many of my site pages are still being filtered out. Basically, for some of the site pages Google is ignoring my nicely crafted brand specific pages, and choosing to rank another less relevant page from the site in it’s place. A sure fire sign that Google is not happy with you. Here’s a really good example for the search term “Odille Swim“.

I’ve spent the last 3 days solid doing test searches, looking closely at on page content, and analysing the difference between those pages that had recovered and those that had not. I’ve drawn some conclusions based upon a few consistent result behaviours and a generous helping of Google intuition. I thought it would be useful to share my thoughts on the issue with you guys so you can…

1 ) see my process (right or wrong) of working through a situation like this

and

2 ) so I can update you on how my efforts pan out!

So here’s Dr Kirsty’s diagnosis of her latest bout of algorythm-itis. A particularly nasty strain in my opinion!

The Symptoms

• Many pages are being filtered and have less relevant counterparts ranked in their place.
• Some unfiltered pages are sitting around result 50 when they should really be in the top ten.
• Some pages rank fine for their target search terms. These are generally the ones appearing in the results in place of the filtered pages. This results in traffic getting to the wrong sections of the site, and reduced CTR.
• My blog posts are no longer indexed instantly.
• Just to make it interesting, some pages I’ve been monitoring have been penalised one day and fine the next.
• The homepage cache date frequently “rewinds”.
• I’ve written oodles of product-specific content around each brand on this site. They are included on the page via a wordpress plugin. The pages that are unaffected tend to have fewer brand relevant articles on them. They are more likely to have a few “irrelevant” articles about other brands.
• Ouch.

My Initial Diagnosis (if these Google malaises actually exist!)

• Several pages around result 50 to 60 does sort of point at a -50 penalty on some pages.
• When I looked at my pages with fresh eyes and looked for a reason for a penalty / filter I realised the pages looked quite over optimised. Although people argue its existence, I’ve theorised this may be the over optimisation filter.
• Alternatively, based on the fact that many of the worst affected pages had a lot of brand specific link text I wondered if Google might take umbrage at 1 ) there being too much link text on a page or 2 ) too high a proportion of link text being tightly aligned to a set of related search terms.
• The plugin that places related posts on my pages repeats one article on each page twice, and the same excerpt is likely to appear on other site pages. This could trigger an additional duplicate content issue that has not manifested on the pages that have bounced back into the index.

Dr Kirsty’s Treatment

This is the list I will be working through step by step. In an attempt to identify what the issue really is, I’ll be altering a reasonable proportion of my site pages stage by stage to see what effect each alteration has. Therefore, the following steps are in order of “gut suspicion”!

• The excessive link text is first up for alteration as it is the most consistent signal I’ve seen on affected pages. I’ll be reducing this on every page, but making sure the relevant articles remain associated with those pages.
• The duplicate article excerpts will have to go. I’ll take steps to ensure that any article is only mentioned once on any given page and does not turn up in more than one place within the site.
• Finally, I’ll go through each and every site page and reduce the “keyword density”, making sure the mentions of product brand names look natural and fall within a reasonable percentage range.
• After that, who knows? Is it me? Is there an issue with Google? Have my 301 redirects to sort the previous problem caused some other mysterious issue? There will only be questions!

Phew! So there you have three days of my life. A lot of it has been conflicting and contradictory, but I hope I have pinpointed where the issues are at. I have to say this site was developed with a focus on Adwords traffic. My main concern was adding significant value. Which I am pleased to say has worked extremely. My pages have excellent QS. However, I now want to get the SEO sorted on these pages as they really had been bringing in a good amount of traffic (10K visitors per month and rising when they were slapped). Like any affiliate who gets what they want… I now want more!

I won’t be beaten Google, but why is it so difficult to keep both sides of the algo happy when you’re an affiliate?

Strangely though, I have sort of enjoyed the last few days. My once excellent SEO skills are terribly rusty, but SEO was my first passion before affiliate marketing. It has felt sort of good to re-immerse myself in it. At the same time, it has made me feel horribly inadequate – I have fallen behind with the Google times.

Any insight or observations would be welcomed from anyone who has had similar issues, or greater SEO knowledge than I.

So here I am, frantically PPC’ing my little affiliate heart out to catch up on my Christmas preparations. As I mentioned in a previous post I have 90,000 Adwords listings to upload.

So yesterday morning I proudly present my 90,000 listings lovingly created with affiliate blood, sweat, and tears. What does Google tell me?

WTF?

So I duly try again later. And again. And again. And again. In fact, I was still trying at 10pm last night. This morning I decided to delete everything and start again with smaller chunks of upload. The first chunk of around 10,000 listings went up no problems.

“Oh well” I thought. “Perhaps I just needed to cut things down a little.”

This afternoon, I duly pulled another chunk of 7,500 from my beautifully crafted PPC spreadsheet. What does Google say to me about my relatively modest request?

AAARRRGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Modesty forbids me from actually detailing the rest of what I said when this happened again. Needless to say if there was a swear jar in this room there would be enough money in there for a trip to 2 to Barbados. Now, don’t get me wrong.. when it’s bloody well working Adwords Editor is enormously powerful and saves a huge amount of time by giving you the ability to set ads, adgroups, and keywords within a spreadsheet before popping it into the Editor for upload to your Google account. I regularly upload thousands of listings with a graceful ease.

But oh great PPC gods. Why today? Why now when I have so much to do?

So you’ve been Google slapped eh? You are not alone. I had some extremely lucrative landing pages Google slapped last week. They probably represent a good 40% of my income at the moment. Ow. There’ll be a few less strawberry daquaris in Vegas for myself and dear old Duncan I can tell you!

This is my 4th largish incident with good ‘ol Google in my 4 year career as a full timer.

It wasn’t entirely unexpected I have to say. I knew they wouldn’t pass muster for long… I’d simply disguised the affiliate nature of the page. I’d hoped they’d hold out till I was home as I’d no time to create the amount of content required to get them compliant because of my travels. But hey ho… this is the nature of affiliate marketing these days!

Sounding a bit too cheerful am I? No funeral dirges, wailing, gnashing of teeth or general anger at Google? Nope. This game is about risk and reward. The rewards are great… but sometimes the risk will inevitably catch up with you.

So How Have I Insulated Myself From Google Induced Cardiac Arrest?

Anyone in immediate dire straits looking for a Google liferaft should move on now. This isn’t about a quick fix, it’s about planning and preparation.

What’s The Plan Stan?

1 ) I know EXACTLY how to fix the current issues and move forward. Nobody can tell you about that better that Kieron in his article about creating iron clad Google Adwords Landing pages. It’s really, really important not to stick your head in the sand when you hear them affiliate rumbles in the jungle about an impending algo change. They are often well founded. Although I’ve not been able to keep up with my content creation, I have kept an open mind about moving on and constantly improving my content.

The moral? Always innovate. Affiliate marketing is a constant process of learning and change. Don’t get left behind.

2 ) I don’t have all my eggs in the Google basket, or the landing page basket. That way, these little Google curve balls can’t send me racing off in the direction of paid employment. Gah!! I get cold sweats just thinking about that one. I’ve always got enough running on direct to merchant and other PPC engines to make sure our lifestyle is assured.

3 ) I actually have enough money for Duncan and I to live quite happily for 2 years sitting in the bank. I NEVER live up to the standard of the money I’m earning. I save it, and spend about 25%… still a great lifestyle and this removes any financial stress during a Google slap. Alright, that one is easier to say than do guys and gals, but it is something every affiliate needs to think about. Our finances are volatile. Don’t get lulled into a false sense of spending security when the good times are a rollin’!

4 ) I’m pretty confident in my own ability to get my 40% back within 3 to 4 months. Why? Because I always have some extra revenue ideas up my sleeve. I plan and think 6 months ahead at all times. When the Google slap comes crashing down it’s off to the notebook to dredge up all my current ideas and get cracking!

Perhaps this will help you in the future. It’s certainly helping me right now. It means we can still go to Vegas for a start!

Well, it seems that contrary to my speculation in my previous post, E-bay’s move to stop affiliates using Adwords paid search advertising had absolutely nothing to do with the auction giant looking to reduce costs on its in-house PPC by removing affiliates from the Adwords arena.

The two online giants are apparently having a bit of a lover’s tiff over E-bay’s refusal to discuss providing Google Checkout as a payment option for E-bay’s online buyers and sellers. Google checkout is a direct competitor to E-bay’s own in-house payment system – Paypal.

In response to this, Google planned a party named “Let Freedom Ring” to promote Google Checkout on the same day as Ebay’s own event, E-Bay Live. The aim was to bypass E-bay and promote Google Checkout amongst the seller community in order to create some support for the adoption of their own payment system. E-bay sellers can be an influential bunch, and have successfully campaigned for change in the past.

As soon as E-bay caught wind of this, they were naturally quite perturbed, with a spokeswoman commenting, “We don’t view that kind of activity as an appropriate activity for one partner to do to another.” Ebay then switched off all of their Adwords US advertising. Ouch. In response, Google have now cancelled their party but there is still a wide ranging outbreak of “petted lips” amongst various executives at E-bay and Google towers.

It’ll be interesting to see how this one pans out! Thanks to Rob At MarketingDrome for dropping me a wee e-mail about this one.

Read more here: –

ZD Net
Searchengine Land
Discussion at Webmaster World

There’s much wailing and gnashing of teeth on the American side of the pond this morning as several horrified Adwords advertisers wake up to discover they’ve been hit with a huge hike in their minimum bids. I’m not sure as yet if the UK has been similarly affected, cos noboby there has got up yet! *Update* – Yep the UK is affected too! Check out the A4UForum thread on this.

There’s a couple of threads running over at DigitalPoint and WebMasterWorld with the usual (understandable) emotional outpourings that accompany Google’s decisions of an affiliate-crushing nature.

Having read the threads, I was actually quite surprised this was new news to the chaps affected. Us UK types vented our spleens on this one last November in a thread over at A4UForum (this is worth a read if you have been affected and are looking for some workarounds). Could it be that only changes affecting Arbitrage pages have been actioned stateside? I’m unsure. *edit* It seems that this must be an “improvement” to the last algo update to mop up some activity they didn’t wipe out with the last update.

This time I’m viewing this episode from the outside. What I really find interesting about the way people react to these kind of updates is the feverish hysteria that can actually lead to you missing the point when someone in the know tells you exactly what has gone on and why. Good old Keiron Of UKOffer fame (gosh, I must have a crush on him this week). Has jumped right into the fray and told them straight what’s happening. Very few people have paid any attention to him so far…. they’re far too intent on their distress at their situation, and their irritation at what they see as yet another pointless and possibly flawed Google Adwords algo change.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not criticising these poor blighters. I know I’ve done exactly the same and worse in the past when good old Google has chucked me one of life’s curve balls. Ask my other half. He’s the poor sod who’s got to deal with me in my moments of stress. He deserves a bravery medal just for remaining in the house with me some days . Having feverishly checked my account this morning, I’m totally unaffected. Phew! For the first time ever, this has left me in a situation where I can calmly appraise the situation rather than my usual attempt to reach orbit without the aid of a space vessel.

The main lesson I personally take from this new-found perspective is that it’s important to approach these seemingly disastrous changes calmly and with a bit of a “C’est La Vie” attitude. Easy for me to say I hear you cry? Well yes, it is. But I’ve been hit right in the guts by a seemingly career-ending Google decision more times than I care to recall. Each and every time I’ve managed to recoup at least 60% of my losses within 6 to 8 weeks. Terror is a great motivator for me personally. If only I was that focussed all the time!

After my various experiences I can honestly say the best reaction to this has to be “Right. It’s happened. Lets get past the annoyance and work out what to do about it.” The clues are always easy to find. It’s just a question of being calm enough to see them.

Good luck to everyone affected… I know exactly how you feel right now.

So will I be able to take my own good advice next time Google surgically removes 50% of my income? Will I F*ck as like!!

Keiron has now kindly written an article on his blog about how to create adwords landing pages that won’t get banned. Nice one!

I read about this first on James Omdahl’s blog. Thanks James

Teenage boys all over the world are breathing a sigh of relief today after Google won a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by Perfect Ten. The lawsuit was taking Google to task over naughty images from their site being displayed in response to image searches.

Perfect Ten were apparently seeking to protect the images because they feared they would undermine their attempts to sell self same nudie pics to people using mobile phones.

Now, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post, it would be a very simple task for Perfect Ten to add a robots.txt command preventing content being indexed from their site.

However, it seems that Perfect Ten were also contending that Google were responsible for results being returned from other websites using Perfect Ten’s images without permission.

How exactly did numpties expect Google to police that one? I know they’re good technically, but how could they possibly comply with any court ruling ordering them to stop showing these images? The only way I can think of is shutting down the service altogether, which I assume would have been the possible result of a successful case.

This would no doubt result in several hundred thousand teenagers reporting drastically improved eyesight

More Information at BBC News.

I’ve read a couple of things on various blogs and forums recently regarding lawsuits brought by people who have the right royal hump with Google over one thing or another. I decided to go off on one of my random end-of-day internet searches to see just who is suing the great G-Meister this month, and why.

A lawsuit was filed against Google recently for infringing a patent on hyperlinks. Google committed the heinous crime of adding options to links. The lawsuit was filed the same day the patent was granted. Can anyone spell “opportunist”?

Here’s another cracker. Apparently they’ve given someone a bad ranking. There’s a bit of a new slant on this one though… this time Google are being sued because a building contractor doesn’t appreciate the fact that Google indexed bitter complaints by consumers about their service which rank second in response to queries on the company name. Not so much a bad ranking as a bad review. Food critics had better watch out on this one, a precedent could well be set.

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In the last few days, Google has rolled out its GoogleCheckout service to UK merchants. On the face of things, it’s a great deal for UK E-commerce sites. It offers great fraud protection and promises to reduce costs by fighting chargebacks on behalf of the merchant and increasing conversion rates. It’s even offering consumers £10 off all purchases over £30 when they use the system for their purchases.

What’s the problem then?

A vast proportion of sales originating from affiliate links will simply not be tracked.

The checkout system works on the basis of approved tracking providers. If your network hasn’t jumped through Google’s hoops to qualify for inclusion in this new checkout system, you won’t be paid your commissions. Merchants with concerns about affiliate tracking have found that Google Checkout is an all or nothing gig. The big G won’t allow them to revert to another checkout system for sales originating from affiliate links.
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