A few years ago Google first “slapped” thin affiliate sites with low quality scores, and now, webmasters are complaining again because their “high quality” review sites just got “slapped”.
What do I mean by “slapped”? A Quality Score of 10 being reduced to 1. That’s a slap right in the wallet, because what use to cost $0.50 a click, not is $20.00.
Ouch.
First things first, many “experts” are claiming that finally the time has come when Google is going to “stamp out” affiliate marketing because it isn’t a real business. Hold on now … not a real business? Really? Then why, might I ask, does Google OWN an affiliate network?!?!
They don’t hate affiliates, they just hate the lazy ones.
Fact: This issue is with AdWords not the Organic listings.
Testing Results: Of the dozens of affiliate review sites I have, not one of them was slapped in AdWords. Not one.
I also had the opportunity to review sites that did get slapped, and you know what? All of them were awful. They weren’t high quality, they didn’t add value, and they looked like they were built with a content scrapper tool. If you are serious about affiliate market, then get serious about it.
Every program I do my #1 goal is to have a better site than the merchant. Why? Because I know that if my site looks better and performs better, they will want to buy it.
Note: This issue has nothing to do with “cloaked links” or “redirects” according to my testing.
The main reason I started the SEO Revolution was out of frustration. Frustration at all of the lies and misconceptions that are posted in forums, given as advice in teleconferences, and even taught in live workshops. "So why didn't all of this work?" " Why wasn't my site successful?" " Why am I still stuck in a rut?" 
As ever Jerry a sane and even handed response to the hysteria.
It’s just absurd sometimes the degree of ” look what Google has done to me!” Then you go look at the site and the only person that is at fault is the one that put that crap up in the first place.
Jerry,
Know why I trust what you say? Because you test it out and find the truth. Seriously, will there ever be anyone who tests the algorithms the way you do?
Couldn’t agree more by the way. Google has always stuck to this concept of adding value. There are too many affiliate sites that simply do not add value for the consumers. That is who Google is after.
Hey Jerry – thanks for your post and I agree, affiliates need to treat their websites like a real business and not a get rich quick scheme.
I really like your idea about trying to be better than the merchant – good thing to aim for.
Nice level headed post. It’s nice seeing sites that can’t put any effort into supplying decent content get slapped.
Think Google doesn’t really hate the affiliate business itself, just the way how most marketers actually do affiliate marketing by producing and using nothing more than different kinds of spam. So I wouldn’t worry to much about the end of affiliate marketing (which will never come) but think more about how to make quality sites with quality content.
Gunter
Thanks Jerry,
Appreciate your explanation. Would just like to clarify though:
Just quoting you:
Fact: This issue is with AdWords not the Organic listings.
Testing Results: Of the dozens of affiliate review sites I have, not one of them was slapped in AdWords. Not one.
Does this mean that the organic listings are NOT affected. i.e the issue is purely with Adwords (but in your case all OK because you had quality sites)
Would just like to clarify.
Thanks
You quoted me as saying:
“Fact: This issue is with AdWords not the Organic listings.”
And then asked, “Does this mean that the organic listings are NOT affected?”
I don’t know how more clear I could have been, unless you posted just to Spam my blog to get link juice. Oh, and I removed your link Spam too.
I used to run a lot of Google Bizopp stuff with adwords, and I started getting slapped hard. So, I just started buying a new domain every day or two, when QS went to 1. It worked great for a week or two, but then my account got suspended. It’s all yahoo now… hahaha.
By the way, do you know anything about Google slapping affiliate sites in the SERPs? It seems like all of my affiliate blogs are getting harder to rank.
Cheers for the great page – I had fun reading it! I always enjoy reading your blog.
Promote something of ?value? and you can even turn a promotion into ?content?
I have heard the 90/10 rule works best, but the point is, whether its 80/20 or 90/10 or 75/25 doesn?t matter as much as how VALUABLE is the CONTENT you are delivering 
If you follow 99/1 and your 99% content is irrelavant, untimely, and just plain valueless to your readership, you really don?t have a 99/1 ratio 
Added to my favourites list and added to my blogroll.
Just FYI, I also had trouble understanding exactly what you meant by:
“Fact: This issue is with AdWords not the Organic listings.
Testing Results: Of the dozens of affiliate review sites I have, not one of them was slapped in AdWords. Not one.”
I take it to mean that *your* affiliate review sites, even though they used AdWords, didnt get slapped.
And this is because of their overall high quality right?
I’m new to this, but I’m reading other places that even long-term, quality affiliate sites have were hit, so what made yours different?