Slapped By Google? Here's a Suggestion [Archive] - eWealth.com Internet Marketing Forum

View Full Version : Slapped By Google? Here's a Suggestion

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 10th, 2006, 03:23 PM

The latest Google slap to shake affiliate marketers out of their advertising systems should be viewed as an opportunity.

If they handed you lemons, here's how you can start making lemonade...

Think for a moment about how much of your competition has been eliminated. If you can get your ads running again, you have an excellent chance of increasing your conversion rate (sales/visitors). This sounds obvious but it is easier said than done.

In almost all niches, some competitors remain.

HOW DO THESE AFFILIATE MARKETERS AVOID THE SLAP???

The best way to find out is to enter your best keywords into Google and see who's ads are showing and view the source of their pages. I've done this for several popular "Clickbank type" keywords and wow! I was blown away by what I found.

I have seen black hat techniques old and new. Obsfucated javascript (used this to decode it http://www.linkedresources.com/tools/unescaper_v0.2b1.html)
0 IFRAMES
0 FRAMES
javascript links instead of url's (could this be part of why CJ wanted to push Javascript links? It is obvious that adwords doesn't follow them for fear that they would be clicking some other competitors PPC links like adbrite or YPN)
Keyword stuffing
invisible text
cloaking
and much much more.

If you find stuff like this too, let me know. You don't have to mention the site as I am only curious as to what is getting past Google's quality algorithms.

~B

WayneB

November 11th, 2006, 12:43 AM

How do we go about making these javascript links in place of the regular
urls?

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 11th, 2006, 07:45 AM

Salutations WayneB!

The best way to find out is to enter your best keywords into Google and see who's ads are showing and view the source of their pages.

How many competitor's source code did you look at?

Or are you expecting Biff to do all of the work for you ? :)

~B

BoogalooDude

November 11th, 2006, 09:04 AM

:lol:

Yes please. I'd like a site that ranks number one for all my chosen keywords, gets shedloads of traffic and makes me a lotofmoney please.

WayneB

November 11th, 2006, 09:45 AM

BoogalooDude

November 11th, 2006, 10:48 AM

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 11th, 2006, 02:04 PM

Good for you, I'm sure that if you've given it your best effort but are still stuck, then Biff, or anyone else, will be only to happy to help out.

Yep, if you have an example that confuses you, post it and I'll do what I can to explain it.

~B

Boog you haven't been the same since that weekend in Wales. They growing magic mushrooms out there? LOL!

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 11th, 2006, 02:35 PM

Here's a fun one...

<script>

</script>
<noscript>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>These are not the droids that you are looking for</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
Ewealth in a frame?<BR>
I don't know what you are talking about<BR>
<BR>
~B<BR>
</BODY>
</noscript>

View it with Javascript turned off on your browser and then with javascript turned on. Seeing this in action in Adwords advertised sites.

~B

D.W

November 12th, 2006, 10:51 PM

Sorry I asked. I'm sure I can figure it out. I've seen all the sites using frames
and iframes, javascript to create the hoplink invisibly and shady urls, and
sites just copying the vendors sales page onto their site.
Just wasn't sure how the javascript works in place of anchor tags, but I'll do
my research and figure it out.

<script language="javascript">

</script>

Or are you looking for this....

<a href="javascript:window.location='http://www.domain.com'" onmouseover="window.status='http://www.domain.com'; return true"
onmouseout="window.status=' '; return true" target="_blank">Domain website</a>

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 13th, 2006, 07:10 PM

I've been really watching the ads that come up for various searches at Goog. I noticed today that a tremendous number of ads are back that had been missing last week after the slap.
I only had one website get hit and it came back to life immediately after changing its domain.

I was wondering if anyone noticed their $5 and $10 bids go back down to reasonable prices or did everyone just get new domains ? :)

~B

WayneB

November 13th, 2006, 09:52 PM

I just got back from being away for the weekend, copied my site onto a
new domain, and have submitted some of the exact same ads I was using
with my first domain. The old domain Google wanted minimum $10 to
activate. With the new domain I entered 0.15 and so far my keywords
are active and showing on Google. Hopefully they will stay this way for
a while.
Thanks everyone for the javascript examples. I will check these out and
see if they will work for me.

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 13th, 2006, 09:54 PM

Happy to hear it WayneB. Thanks for sharing and I hope they keep running. I'm optimistic. :)

~B

celato

November 21st, 2006, 11:53 PM

You know this should be obvious to Internet marketers, but I wonder how many just get slapped, then complain, then give up? Neat javascript tricks Biff.

- Celato

BoogalooDude

November 22nd, 2006, 04:47 AM

This is Perry Marshall's (fairly wordy) take on the recent changes FYI. I left in the bit he's trying to sell...

Most people well remember the "Google Slap" last July
when thousands of advertisers woke up to find their
minimum bids jacked up to $5.00 and $10.00 a click.
The official story was that it was a "landing page quality issue"
when in fact it was more like a "website content quantity" issue.

About 2 weeks ago they rolled in another change, this one
more subtle and affecting fewer people. But even if you
didn't notice directly, you can still probably see a shift if
you use the reports tab in your account to graph clicks
and / or impressions. Content traffic was affected the
most, for most people. Some people were severely affected.

***IMPORTANT OBSERVATION:
Having been through several rounds of this - and knowing
that the game is going to continue to evolve as time goes on,
with more Google slaps and more interesting twists - the
people who stay in the know always wind up on top and the
losers who get on discussion boards and bitterly complain,
continue to be losers. You get to decide whether to stay
plugged into reliable information - as well as provide
quality information to your visitors on your site - or keep
trying to cheat the system, which always eventually fails.***

OK, enough preaching. The core issue with Google Slap is:
There's a fringy aspect of AdWords where if your site is
small or if there's a mismatch between your ads / keywords
and web pages, Google will simply jack up your minimum bids.
When you call them they will NOT explain how to fix it. You're
on your own. Robots make these decisions, and the Google
rep on the other end of the line does not necessarily know the
formula anyway.

(I did *not* get a huge amount of emails about this. The
most heavily affected people were affiliates, people with
machine-generated AdSense pages, and people with skinny
little one- and two- page sites. Most of my customers aren't
doing that.)

Still, some people with legitimate, good quality sites
were slammed and today I'm going to give you some
tips that have made a big difference for some.

Here's a success story I got from one astute gentleman.
Pay close attention:

"Just FYI, in case you're still gathering info ... I beat Google's royal behind today:

- Added a site map, with a link to it of course
- Added a few low key outbound links to high page rank sites (very bottom of page)
- Removed the bullets from the penalized pages, and textualized them
- Added more SEO stuff (keyword rich anchor tags)
- Broke up my email articles and installed them throughout the site, linked into the sitemap

Nothing dramatic ... seems like they just tightened up the changes from round 1.

The thing is, WITH these changes, my quality score is better than it ever was
(I've now got 2 cent minimums on keywords which never had them, and that's
without any traffic coming through, strictly from the spider food)."

Don't forget that with most of these changes, while some
people loudly lose, others quietly win. I talked to a number
of people whose ads shot up to the top after this latest change.
Of course some people benefitted, because some of their
competitors disappeared.

Marketing Intelligence Wizard Glenn Livingston put it this way:

"Now that landing page is part of the quality score, it actually
provides a potential ADVANTAGE to smart advertisers who do it right.

"Just as with writing a hyper-relevant ad that gets high
click through, you can now improve your position and reduce
your ad costs when you do what Google wants. And even if it
DOES reduce opt in rates, you get compensated for this by
the reduced click costs. It's not just a matter of minimum
bids, ... the quality score is a continuum which influences
your position, # of clicks, etc., even when you ARE bidding
above the minimum."

One of my own campaigns - one that I could never get
below 5-6 cents a click - is now taking 4 cent clicks.
Haven't tried 3 cents yet. Google Slap 2 has been good to me.

Having been through several rounds of this, and knowing that
more are coming (as Google's senior staff assures me), this
is what goes on out there:

-The average 'man on the street' Google advertiser thinks
that Google is just trying to shake him down for more money,
every six months or so.

-Marketers who truly understand Relevance - who create
sites that are so sticky that nobody wants to click the BACK
button - continue to do better and better. When Google
introduced Quality Score a year and a half ago, my tuned-in
Renaissance Club Members got cheaper clicks. When Google
Slap happened this past summer, they got more clicks for
less. When Google Slap happened two weeks ago, they got
even more.

Losers lose. Winners win.

If you're not a Renaissance Club member, give it a test drive.
It's a hard deal to turn down - you get $500 of stuff sent to
you in the mail for $29.95, just for giving it a good College Try:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/club

Have a Great Thanksgiving Celebration.

Perry Marshall

ArtColombia

November 22nd, 2006, 08:16 AM

This is Perry Marshall's (fairly wordy) take on the recent changes FYI. I left in the bit he's trying to sell...

.......
Losers lose. Winners win.

If you're not a Renaissance Club member, give it a test drive.
It's a hard deal to turn down - you get $500 of stuff sent to
you in the mail for $29.95, just for giving it a good College Try:
http://www.perrymarshall.com/club

Have a Great Thanksgiving Celebration.

Perry Marshall

Great Information Boog.
Are you in Perry´s club?

What he says is all too true and for entry players like myself it is important to work through the hard stuff that Google throws - hopefully there will be some sunshine and a rainbow at the end of this rainstorm. I got a $10 slap on a campaign I had . . . and quite rightly too .. . just need to work harder (and smarter :wink: )

BoogalooDude

November 22nd, 2006, 09:09 AM

Great Information Boog.
Are you in Perry´s club?

What he says is all too true and for entry players like myself it is important to work through the hard stuff that Google throws - hopefully there will be some sunshine and a rainbow at the end of this rainstorm. I got a $10 slap on a campaign I had . . . and quite rightly too .. . just need to work harder (and smarter :wink: )

No I'm not, I bought some of his PPC stuff though, that was how I got started in IM.

Now I read his emails carefully and try to glean what I can from them without getting sucked into buying something else......

Biff_Tiberius_Farnsworth

November 22nd, 2006, 10:08 AM

Here is a question that I posted on DP under one of my many 'nom de plumes'. The moronathon that is DP couldn't even comprehend the question. What a bunch of losers.

Thank you eWealth!

Why isn't Google being honest with their Adwords Customers?

They seem to be hiding behind the broad cloud of the ambiguous word "quality".

It seems to me though, that you can have a website with horrible navigation, spelling and grammatical errors galore, dead links, missing images and a dozen blinking animated GIFs or horrid Flash objects and it does not affect your quality score.

Add some affiliate links and/or content ads and voila! It starts to calculate a quality score.

Just try to get someone at Google to define 'quality'. They will only go so far to say that 'quality' is defined so that visitors have a good experience. This seems contrary to the example above. I would not call that a good experience for the user but Google thinks it is compared to a page with affiliate links.

What's up with that?

Am I way off base on this? Can someone provide a counterpoint?

My point is that it is called "quality" but it does not apply to quality.

If you make a website to sell something and you advertise it on Adwords, it can be a very low quality site with a horrible user experience and this does not seem to affect the "quality score" in any way.

I was wondering if there were consequences that I had not thought of if Google just said,

"We don't want adwords to be filled with ads pointing to the same product via affiliate links. Making it so that one entry per destination URL on a page did not work because people are making landing pages with different destination URL's that basically point to the same product because they are affiliate marketers. Now we are monitoring for pages like this and adding a weighted score to their ranking/min bid."

Is it wrong to say that? Will they get sued? I just don't understand why they can't say it and that is my question.

It was too intellectual for DP'ers who responded with things like...

Why you think google lies?

and cryptic messages from beyond like...

Let's just say that I suspect certain "sales language" is given a low score when it comes to page quality... and if so, then it may not have anything to do with the statement you've offered.

WTF does that mean? Do people even read the posts before replying over there?

It's almost as bad as ABW where the sanctimonious gather to pat each other on the back and fall prey to affiliate managers promising them sales in the millions while they all scramble to move their sites to new domains because Google slapped them for their crappy link spam sites. With the exception of Coley, I don't think there's an affiliate marketer on that board making $10,000 a month net let alone the $83,334 a month required to make a million a year. I suspect many of them actually make less than $1000 a month.

Morons!
~B