Another Potential Blow for Affiliate Marketers

For example, when I search “best blender,” I am given sponsored blender choices at the righthand side of the search results. A little ways down is another Google-made list of the best blenders, feeding recommendation content from the website healthykitchen101.com.

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A while back Google started showing comparison charts and other featured snippets/knowledge graphs in the SERP for affiliate terms.

This trend has been going on for years, along with Amazon cutting their commission rates.

This is why it's super important to start thinking about your websites as long term projects and focus on building a brand and not relying on just organic traffic.

Source

https://www.fastcompany.com/90344065/google-may-be-about-to-kill-affiliate-marketing-links

Yeah.. .It's getting Intense

i dont think its a big deal

a good affiliate site has lengthy and useful descriptions, substantial reviews, and product comparisons. the legit affiliate sites will still get visitors

No big deal here. Its not like they are going to destroy the affiliate marketing.

adjacking is your friend.

kontentdruid said:

i dont think its a big deal

a good affiliate site has lengthy and useful descriptions, substantial reviews, and product comparisons. the legit affiliate sites will still get visitors

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Nut-Nights said:

No big deal here. Its not like they are going to destroy the affiliate marketing.

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While I agree with both statements Google doesn't need affiliate websites and would rather take the $ themselves.

Whilst there are still many highly trusted affiliate websites on the web (WireCutter etc) that get a good level of direct, referall, email and social traffic they still will rely heavily on organic traffic.

I can see this move hurting complex long tail terms the most vs short tail. What I mean is terms that require knowledge to buy that people would rely on reading a buyer's guide for. Long tails are usually searched for by people who know what they need but are looking for a specific term, I can see these pages being hurt the most as people don't often need to read a buyer's guide and just want the product reccomendation. Since Google is offering the results I think it could lower CTR by a fair bit from these pages.

OMG!!! It is like Google will become a giant Amazon.
Definitely not great news for someone who is just trying to start her own affiliate website...
But there must be a way out......

I suspect that Google's tentacles will be trimmed sooner or later. They, along with Twitter, Amazon, and Facebook have become monopolies and are starting to get noticed in Washington.