Clickbait title, perhaps, but something I’d like to hear people’s opinions about after seeing @Shaunm got his account banned from Pinterest.
While I think his situation doesn’t apply here, as I believe he’s been pinning informational content, I’ve seen a lot of bloggers being banned from Pinterest recently including many affiliates.
My thought here is that Pinterest likes to see original products/crafts/art that looks pretty, and affiliate stuff isn’t that, so they want rid of the blatant low value affiliate content that people don’t want to interact with/share.
What if Google did the same?
Google aren’t stupid, no one knows their SERP’s as well as they do, and they can’t be oblivious to the fact that 99.9% of Amazon affiliate sites are crap that offer zero value to the user.
The vast majority of Amazon affiliate sites plaguing the SERP’s are nothing more than a con, with someone in a third world country paid 1c per word to rewrite the description of a product that they’ve never even seen before, never mind used, and turn it into a “review”.
Google will know this, and they know that it offers zero value to the user, and therefore doesn’t serve the search intent of the potential buyer.
What’s stopping them releasing an update that penalises all pages that are just riddled with comparison tables and Amazon affiliate links?
It’d be a win-win for them. People complain of Google’s greed pushing the YouTube widget into the SERP to keep traffic on their own platforms, which is true, but they’re also offering the searcher more value.
At the end of the day, YouTube reviews offer a ton more value, the person is doing the review themselves with the product right in front of them. Whether they’ve used it or not, that’s 2 points they score over almost all Amazon affiliate sites already. Could you really blame them for offering the user more value?
To add, wouldn’t it be fair to rank amazon.com verified purchaser reviews at the top of the SERP too? These people have actually bought and used the product. “Ooooh but my on-page is better, I should rank higher!”. Forget your on-page SEO, if they want to serve the user the best they can, that’s what they should be showing at the top of the results, and it might just be a matter of time before they do. Can you really complain about that?
I see people talking about Amazon closing their affiliate program frequently, or further cutting commissions, but what if Google just decide to serve their users better and boot that useless crap down their SERP’s?
Perhaps a drop in commissions is the least of our worries.
Interested in people’s thoughts...
While I think his situation doesn’t apply here, as I believe he’s been pinning informational content, I’ve seen a lot of bloggers being banned from Pinterest recently including many affiliates.
My thought here is that Pinterest likes to see original products/crafts/art that looks pretty, and affiliate stuff isn’t that, so they want rid of the blatant low value affiliate content that people don’t want to interact with/share.
What if Google did the same?
Google aren’t stupid, no one knows their SERP’s as well as they do, and they can’t be oblivious to the fact that 99.9% of Amazon affiliate sites are crap that offer zero value to the user.
The vast majority of Amazon affiliate sites plaguing the SERP’s are nothing more than a con, with someone in a third world country paid 1c per word to rewrite the description of a product that they’ve never even seen before, never mind used, and turn it into a “review”.
Google will know this, and they know that it offers zero value to the user, and therefore doesn’t serve the search intent of the potential buyer.
What’s stopping them releasing an update that penalises all pages that are just riddled with comparison tables and Amazon affiliate links?
It’d be a win-win for them. People complain of Google’s greed pushing the YouTube widget into the SERP to keep traffic on their own platforms, which is true, but they’re also offering the searcher more value.
At the end of the day, YouTube reviews offer a ton more value, the person is doing the review themselves with the product right in front of them. Whether they’ve used it or not, that’s 2 points they score over almost all Amazon affiliate sites already. Could you really blame them for offering the user more value?
To add, wouldn’t it be fair to rank amazon.com verified purchaser reviews at the top of the SERP too? These people have actually bought and used the product. “Ooooh but my on-page is better, I should rank higher!”. Forget your on-page SEO, if they want to serve the user the best they can, that’s what they should be showing at the top of the results, and it might just be a matter of time before they do. Can you really complain about that?
I see people talking about Amazon closing their affiliate program frequently, or further cutting commissions, but what if Google just decide to serve their users better and boot that useless crap down their SERP’s?
Perhaps a drop in commissions is the least of our worries.
Interested in people’s thoughts...
