TRAFFIC
Dave Naylor of Bronco reflects on the state of affiliate marketing in
2014 and how affiliates can incorporate its lessons into their organic
strategies for 2015.
It comes as no surprise that the
affiliate marketing game has become a
minefield in recent years, thanks to Google
and their constant desire to change the way
in which they process, analyse and report
on their findings. Thus 2014 has been alive
with the sound of updating algorithms,
manual intervention and mystical
comments surrounding what the search
engine giants want from a ‘natural’ website.
This year alone, we have played
witness to Google Panda updates, piracy
enhancements, multiple spam updates,
and more recently a new generation of
Google Penguin, one that has taken longer
than ever before to fully complete its
rollout globally. At the time of writing, it is
still processing more than six weeks after
it was officially announced to be underway.
With change maybe the only constant
that we have seen from Google in terms
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iGB Affiliate Issue 48 DEC/JAN 2014/2015
of their search engine organics, it can be
hard to really know the best way to move
forward when you are looking to grow
your presence online. First, there was
guest posting, then that was given the
dreaded kiss of death, there was the need
for an anchor text-fuelled back-link profile,
and Google Penguin ensured that became
a thing of the past too.
So, given the need to evolve with
Google’s changes without causing issues
for your main revenue-driving sites, what
exactly can you do to ensure you can gain
the upper hand when it comes to organic
performance in 2015?
It’s fair to say that people generally
don’t like change, but in order to keep on
top of your SEO game, you will need to
make some.
I know some of you reading this will
be thinking you have no reason to evolve,
you have always tried to toe the Google
line when it comes to the promotion of
your sites. However, this year alone we
have seen two instances of Google
making unannounced changes to their
quality guidelines, and those are just the
two that were noticed. So, when exactly
was the last time that you familiarised
yourself with these?
There are so many factors in the
organic ranking game these days; local
search, preference search, geo-targeting
and so many more. A failure to recognise
that properly following the Google
guidelines requires adaptability could
ultimately become your downfall.
With that said, Google have made
mistakes, they have fallen short of their
promise of cleaning up their search
engine results from spam sites and
harmful potential that their users could
stumble upon, with many widespread
online niches being dominated by ‘black
hat’ techniques and hacked properties.
Although high risk and often short
lived, Google seems to be struggling to
get to grips with black hat operators, even
though some of their current techniques
are loosely based on those seen more than
two years ago. They know it, we know it
and the owners of the sites know it, but
Google will eventually catch up.
Although it can become tempting to
trial such techniques, doing so comes
at a price. I have seen a historically
untrustworthy campaign return to
eliminate a site within a competitive
industry that had been well created,
followed the guidelines and tried to stay on
the best side of the search engine giant.
As soon as one of the rule-breaking
properties was discovered to be operated by
the same owner, who had previously played
the manipulation game, Google struck and
took out every site he had ever tied to his
Google Webmaster Tools account. Gone.
This goes to show that Google can often
be unforgiving, and that historic techniques
can often result in even the cleanest of sites