Arbitreurs and Affiliates Must Build Better Sites To Lower Costs
ShoeMoney, through a contact at Google, has confirmed that recent changes to AdWords are specifically aimed at arbitreurs and affiliates who buy pay-per-click traffic and send them to “low-quality” (in Google's eyes) sites. The arbitreurs make their money by displaying related but higher-paying AdSense ads on those pages; the affiliates make money when a conversion occurs. Google has decided to put arbitreurs and affiliates to work at improving the overall quality of the Web. The incentive? Lower advertising costs for those who send traffic to higher-quality sites.
To get a proper understanding of what's happening, start by reading the AdWords Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines. Then read this essay I wrote in July: Landing Pages and Pay-Per-Click: A New Content Outlet. This is what it comes down to: instead of building landing pages, build landing sites. I lay out what I think are the general guidelines in the essay.
So let's be clear what this is all about again: Google is not trying to rid the Web of arbitreurs and affiliates. They just want to work a bit at making their money. If all you're going to do is send people to the same long-copy or squeeze page that everyone else does, you're going to pay dearly for your clicks. If, on the other hand, you send them to a set of easily navigable pages with unique and helpful content, Google will reward you for your efforts with lower traffic costs. (Do it right and those pages will be very attractive to the search engines themselves, providing you with natural traffic as well.)
How much of a cost difference can you expect? I haven't run any experiments yet, so it's hard to say. But presumably it's enough to make life difficult for lazy arbitreurs and affiliates. I'll let you know what I figure out.
Sponsored Link: Read Affiliate “Project X” for advanced affiliate marketing strategies. Oops… that page needs to change now, doesn't it?…
Eric Giguere is the contextual advertising expert who wrote Make Easy Money with Google and Uncommon AdSense. If you like this posting, why not ask Technorati to fix their broken tracking system!