Google AdWords Account Suspended – Is this the end of Direct Linking?
The Google Affiliate Takedown of 2009: is Direct Linking now too “parasitical” for Google, and is this resulting in banned AdWords accounts?
Warning and Disclaimer: the following is the thoughts and opinions of the author only.
In April 2009, Amazon.com in North America effectively “fired” part of their affiliate community by terminating commission payments resulting from direct linking campaigns in AdWords. Why?
They obviously had very good reasons for doing so, probably like
- channel competition
- inflated bid prices
- poor conversion
- unproductive traffic and unnecessary associated costs (bandwidth, hosting etc.)
Is Google now doing the same?
And is Google squaring up to Amazon with its own Affiliate network, and Commercial Search?
Banned
The Internet is currently awash with reports of cancelled AdWords accounts, and no one seems to know the true reason behind this.
Google is not talking.
In fact, they won’t. They are automated, and have their procedures.
The human operators behind Google have to obey the rules of their machine.
As a Google Agency Partner, I talk to their European HQ staff, and I have tried and failed to revive legitimate accounts advertising legitimate products and services that have fallen victim to the machine.
If the machine shuts you down, the humans cannot resurrect you. They serve IT – not you.
Many people are affected, some of them long time Google adwords account holders, some of them even doing nothing other than keyword research
Whilst I have no direct proof, other than what I can infer from what I read online and hear from colleagues, and based on my own five years experience in the industry, I have some ideas and thoughts that I think are relevant and may offer some explanation.
Games
Anyone who has been managing AdWords campaigns for a number of years knows that Google has been forced to fundamentally change their system several times.
Usually because someone was “gaming the system”. And always in the interests of serving their users better.
The days of writing AFF in your ads are long over, yet the basic principle still applies. Although, perhaps now the clock is ticking …
Google seems to be unwilling to collaborate any longer with marketers who are using AdWords accounts without adding any value and relevance to their users. And even stealing from them…
In the past they would just take your money – but they no longer need to.
Now they have the knowledge and technology to know what doesn’t work, what does, and how to deploy it.
Direct Linking
The problem I believe lies with reprehensible Affiliate practices over the years (the few affecting the many), and direct linking as of the present day (which implicitly embodies the latter). In other words, Direct Linking = Affiliate
By linking directly, you clearly demonstrate you do not own or control the contents of the landing page you are linking to. Because someone else owns it.
If you cannot control your landing page you cannot know its value, or improve your Landing Page Quality Score (LPQS). Neither (implicitly) do you care – or you would create your own.
Do you think Amazon knows the value of its own pages? You bet! But could you – ever?
If you run direct linking campaigns, you are a member of a community which I believe Google no longer wants (or can afford) to be in any way associated with. Witness the ruthlessness of their current clamp-down.
Direct Linking is the biggest give-away to everything Google hates (Note their carefully chosen banning terminology of “egregious” to describe these activities. The dictionary definition is “offensive”).
Don’t forget Google measures page load and abandonment times – so they know what their users consider “offensive”. None better.
Typical affiliate practices (you know who you are) can include:
- attempted multiple use of promotional vouchers
- repeated payment failures
- switching credit cards
- switching adwords accounts
- serial offenders and their locale (think IP)
- poor campaign construction
- poor campaign performance
- poor ads
- highly inflamatory ads
- bidding wars on the same url
- huge keyword lists
- “set it and forget it”, then move on, campaigns
- “bandwagon” campaigns
- ripping off other affiliate’s campaigns and hijacking their success
- bidding strategies designed to stonewall other competing affiliates and price them out
- not tracking results
- not testing improvements
and more …
Owning your Content
The members of this community promote offers they have no control over, and only believe they are – or could be – successful with because they are spying on all the other members of the community.
Another aspect of not “owning your page content” is that these pages will constantly change (think of an Amazon page and how it evolves) and can be taken down completely without you even knowing.
To quote Bud Fox’s father in the great movie Wall Street — “create something of value, instead of living off the buying and selling of others”
This results in huge duplication, artificial search spikes, channel conflict, artificially inflated bid prices, many unsuccessful advertisers, penalisation of legitimate advertisers, huge churn on AdWords accounts, and lots of unhappy and frustrated people — both advertisers and consumers.
So much so that the FTC is now involved. And that Google is suing a company in Utah for a series of bogus work-at-home schemes (finally)
With that much heat, something is having to give.
SEO?
I believe there’s also an SEO dimension to this.
It’s been observed many times before that Google is constantly evolving Paid Search (AdWords PPC) to more closely follow their Organic, or Natural Ranking model. I remember years ago when I spotted by accident, for example, that keywords in urls had started to be bolded like in the Search results (they weren’t originally).
A direct linking ad has no content, it’s like an empty page. It has no value. So, why should it “rank”?
User feedback
I recall my days many years ago of working as a support engineer for a UNIX computer systems manufacturer.
People we had sold these systems to would occasionally call us for help with a weird problem.
When I asked under what circumstances they saw the error condition, and what was happening, I sometimes felt like asking them: “you’re using it to do — what?”
Because the users of our systems would frequently be using them in a way we had never before seen. Or designed for.
Although frustrating, because there was a fault we had a responsibility to fix (and sometimes at our own cost), our benefit was that we were able to improve our level of support to our users. And improve our product. For our users benefit. Positive feedback …
Creativity
Don’t forget that Google’s founders are engineers and mathematicians who have created the most sophisticated global advertising platform that the world has ever seen.
It’s hardly surprising then that such a powerful engine has over the years, and continues to be, used in ever more creative ways, and frequently not in the interests of Google’s users. And if not Google’s users, then certainly not Google themselves.
So beware.
If you are direct linking, you could be considered a “speculator” or “opportunity-seeker”.
Worse, maybe even a “pimp” or “scammer”.
Worst of all, potentially a thief, or associated with them even if unwittingly. Ignorance is no longer an excuse, or tolerated.
These are not the sort of individuals that Google wants to be associated with.
A Real Business
Google is in business for the long term, and wants to work in partnership with “real businesses” who have solid, tangible commercial products, services and information that people want to buy, use and benefit from.
This is also probably informing Google’s recent roll out of their increasing number of display-based e-commerce product advertising solutions based on their Merchant Centre.
Real products, for real customers. You can’t use Merchant Centre if you don’t own or wholesale your products. Affiliates – keep out …
The Squeeze
Also associated with direct linking campaigns, and the kinds of landing pages they typically use, is the requirement that the page visitor always has to surrender something of value first (namely their e-mail address) before they get to see what is actually on offer. A “squeeze page”.
Can you imagine Amazon asking you for your e-mail address before showing their store pages? At what part of the buying cycle should you expect to need to give away your e-mail address?
In my opinion – only when I have seen everything I need to see to allow me to make my informed decision to buy, and then only to facilitate essential communication for me to receive my order.
I should not have to give away something precious (and potentially open to misuse) just in order to see whether I might be interested in what you have.
Let me see your offer first in full, and if I want it I’ll buy it – and only then are you entitled to ask for my e-mail address, since it is now in my own interest to give it to you (not yours).
The lesson?
Perhaps Google is now really waking up to their wider responsibilities.
As a former corporate manager of suppliers and services, this is what makes most sense to me.
Disliked or mistrusted as they may be, Google is a servant of the Internet, and it’s users. And, as publishers, so are we …
So, to succeed on Google:
Give first, then you may receive – if what you freely give, truly has the value I need.
January 2010 update! Amazon.co.uk follows up and suspends paid search and PPC from February 2010.
Read Changes to Amazon Associates Programme
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AdWords Ad SiteLinks: Up to 10 Additional Links for Your Ad
Google AdWords Ad Site Links: Getting More Screen Real-Estate and Visitors by Having up to 10 Additional Links That May be Shown With Your Ad
Contents
A New AdWords Feature – increasing Choice and Relevancy in Search Ads
Introduced in November 2009, Ad Sitelinks is a new AdWords feature to extend the value of your existing AdWords ads by providing additional links to content deep within your site.
Rather than sending all users to the same landing page, Ad Sitelinks will display up to 4 additional Destination URLs on your search-based text ad.
With more options, you can create richer, more relevant ads that improve the value of your search terms and other targeted keywords.
With Ad Sitelinks, you can point to specific information on your site such as targeted offers, special deals, seasonal promotions, and store locations.
Currently, the option to set up Ad Sitelinks will only appear for selected advertisers, and whose ads meet a certain high quality threshold.
If your account qualifies to run this feature, you’ll find the option to set up Ad Sitelinks in your Campaign Settings tab — it will appear as "Show additional links to my site" under the "Ad extensions" section.
Which Ads Qualify to Run Ad Sitelinks?
Ad Sitelinks are designed to trigger in situations where an ad provides the "best answer" for a search query, and Ad Sitelinks are most likely to trigger on unique brand terms.
In addition, Ad Sitelinks are more likely to appear on top-ranked ads with high quality scores and CTR; however, they may not always be displayed for every top-ranked ad.
Ad Sitelinks extends the value of your AdWords ads by showcasing additional targeted and relevant links for users whose search queries have triggered your ad.
In addition, Ad Sitelinks makes it easy to update and refresh seasonal and limited promotions – you can change the additional links on your ads as often as you like to make each ad more timely for your current sales and marketing efforts.
There’s no need to change your current ads. Sitelinks adds additional links beneath your existing ads, making them even more relevant to a wider range of users.
How You are Charged for SiteLinks
All clicks are charged at the same rate, regardless of which links are clicked within an ad.
This means that you’ll be charged for one click each time a user clicks any link in your ad, whether it’s the main landing page displayed in your Destination URL or any of the additional links served as part of the Ad Sitelinks feature.
If more than one link is clicked while viewing an ad, this will be treated this as a duplicate (or invalid) click and you won’t be charged.
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AVG antivirus V9 upgrade causes problems with AdWords Editor
I’ve been using free AVG for years as virus protection, with nothing but praise for a great program which renders paid-for software like Norton, MacAfee and the like unnecessary.
I did try the paid upgrade to AVG earlier in the year with the belief that the extra levels of protection it could provide would be worthwhile.
However, omens were not good when my PC crashed with the blue screen of death during installation.
So I safely reverted back to v8.5
Recently AVG have been publishing an upgrade deadline of December 1st to move up to version 9, which I’d been ignoring for a while.
But yesterday I upgraded to free AVG9, which seems a much superior version.
Later in the day though, AdWords Editor was hanging up in the middle of routine account downloads, and I lost an evenings and a morning’s work.
The only change was AVG V9, so I uninstalled it. AdWords Editor came back to life – thank goodness. Just goes to show that I can’t do my work without it, it’s that critical.
So if you are a mission-critical user of AdWords Editor, and a user of AVG free v8.5 looking to upgrade to V9 – take care, you have been warned…
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“Show products from this advertiser” – AdWords PlusBox Expansion
Product "Plus Box" in Google Sponsored Links
Google Search Engineer David shows a neat feature on some of our Sponsored Links that gives you additional information about their products.
For E-Commerce product website owners only: how to add multiple images, descriptions and pricing information to your AdWords advertising campaigns – limited UK availability commencing January 2010 by application only
This extension to the normal AdWords service is currently in trial with only a few Agencies in the UK during Nov-Dec 2009 while Google is testing their results.
(If your AdWords Agency is not included in this program and you would like to participate, you can contact us to be considered)
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Click this link to see the above search results example of the PlusBox Beta in action (new window – results will vary).
Then, consider the effect that multiple images, descriptions, and pricing could have on your current AdWords promotion.
To learn more or be considered for the next availability of the AdWords PlusBox expansion, contact us
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Up to 100% CTR for Ads and Keywords – Guaranteed!
AdWords Sponsored Links Campaigns – Built the Way Google Wants for Guaranteed 100% CTR!
Done for You, or Full Professional Management Services from a Google Qualified Company.
CONTENTS
Old-Fashioned AdWords
In the early days of AdWords we used to use the Overture Search-Term Suggestion Tool to generate large lists of keywords which would go into one or two ad groups with one or two ads.
This approach might not get very good results, but at least it would work in terms of getting your campaign up and running.
And the competition was not as fierce then as it is now, with click costs as high and Google on full alert to defend their reputation.
No more …
The AdWords Time Bomb
Google views all new AdWords advertisers as a risk. A risk to their own reputation.
A risk they are not prepared to tolerate.
No matter how long you have been an advertiser, or how much money you have spent with them, Google will cut you off at a stroke.
And if you totally depend on AdWords traffic for your visitors and revenue, beware – your livelihood is at stake.
Read about Suspended AdWords Accounts here (new window)
Is Your AdWords Account At Risk?
If you have been warned for repeated violations of poor landing page Quality Score, your AdWords account is on the brink of being Suspended.
And once suspended – you’ll never get it back.
Google’s system is automated, with no appeal even to Agency Relationship Managers (not the Call Centre Staff).
The thing is, it’s not necessarily your Landing Pages that are at fault.
It’s the relevance of your Keywords, Ad Texts, Landing Pages and Domain Name in the context of the Google Universe and all the other AdWords advertisers.
And that there are certain Categories of advertising that Google really dislikes – read “websites that merit a low landing page Quality Score” (new window)
You’ve got to keep up-to-date, or you could lose everything.
Modern AdWords
To avoid the risk of a banned account, and to play the game according to the rules Google sets, your AdWords campaigns must be laser-focused on a relevant landing page.
This means small numbers of keywords per ad group.
And many hundreds, or thousands of Ad Groups, with tightly-related ad texts.
This takes time and effort.
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Why AdWords Works (#1 of 47)
Being in safe hands with a Google Agency Partner.
The thing about Google AdWords campaigns is that they don’t lie.
And when your campaigns and website landing pages are correctly set up and working with each other, the results can be outstanding.
This advertiser is enjoying a massive 31.25% conversion rate, costing £1.89 per conversion.
Achieving high conversion rates needs well-structured and continuously optimised campaigns, tightly integrated with your landing pages, which takes time and effort.
If you’re not working with your campaigns every week, as we are, you’ll not get the best results possible.
If you’re serious about making AdWords work, you need professional help.
We’ll audit your campaigns to see hidden opportunities – and we always find them, no matter who you’re using to manage your AdWords Account.
Start making AdWords – WORK
Why AdWords Fails (#2 of 47)
Breaking the 6 rules of landing page design.
Someone typed your keyword into Google, saw your ad, was enticed enough to click on it, and has arrived at your landing page.
And you’ve just paid Google whatever the click price was.
So — now what? What will your visitor do next?
What you want them to do is to stay and take an action which you have predetermined has value to you.
What you don’t want them to do is immediately leave.
They have to know that they are in the right place.
(There’s an excellent book called "Don’t Make Me Think!", which is all about website usability – every website owner should read it).
This website owner is immediately erecting a barricade to the visitors they have paid for.
It used to be quite conventional to have a pretty-looking doorway page before people could actually enter your website.
This is now quite ridiculous and totally unnecessary — it could also cause all your visitors from your paid traffic to leave in confusion (Google Analytics will tell you this "Bounce Rate").
The pretty looking graphic on the front page of this website is not clickable, and you have to carefully scrutinise the whole page before you can see the small and innocuous "ENTER SITE" link. But it’s already probably too late.
These six simple rules will help you design a landing page which helps your visitor get what they want, and ultimately of course what you want: a conversion event.
- Relevance – am I in the right place?
- Clarity – is the page easy to navigate and talking about what I’m interested in?
- A good headline – am I definitely in the right place?
- Social proof — are other people clearly saying nice things about this business?
- Scarcity or time-limited promotion — give me a good reason to convert to your action
- Call to Action – tell me exactly what to do next, and ideally take me to a page when I finish the conversion event which tells me what happens next, and maybe even offers me something else I may be interested in.
Most homepages are too general to achieve a conversion event quickly from a visitor.
If your keywords are related to specific things, then you need dedicated landing pages for them.
Don’t simply drop your visitor off outside the front door of your website, hoping they won’t leave, but will try to figure it out for themselves.
Most of them won’t – they don’t have the time.
We often see website owners failing with AdWords because although they may be getting traffic, they are failing to convert it to a trackable and testable event, at an acceptable cost.
We will even refuse an advertisers business if their website is clearly not going to fulfill its purpose, and they are unwilling or unable to work with us to improve it.
Contact us today for a no obligation discussion about why your AdWords campaigns may be failing to convert what you’re spending into profitable returns.
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Why AdWords Fails (#1 of 47)
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AdWords is a big system, full of moving parts. And it’s getting bigger, more complicated, and wider-reaching all the time.
Changing just one part of the campaign can have unexpected and sometimes unwelcome side-effects. It can even get your account suspended.
This advertiser is making the classic mistakes:
- bid price and position too low
- too many Impressions
- CTR too low
An AdWords account should grow and evolve, following the markets it serves. You can’t just "set it and forget it", so management, optimisation and maintenance becomes an ongoing and regular activity.
Trying to do it yourself is not the best use of your time — running your business is.
That’s why you need help. But not from just anyone who claims to be able to run an AdWords campaign.
We’ve seen many horror stories from people over the years (sometimes even Agencies) to prove the point. And we will share some of those with you.
You need a Google AdWords Professional with years of experience, specialist industry experience, and a close working relationship with Google themselves to ensure you’re in safe hands.
We are that company.
Google Agency Day Invitation, London
AdWordsAnswers.com | David Rothwell Invited to Google’s Agency Day at London HQ October 2009
AdWords – Works. But only if you know your numbers, as this advertiser does…
Most advertisers would kill for a Conversion Rate of almost 15%
So what do they know that you don’t?
It’s all about results.
The ones you can count…
So you need Conversion Tracking.
And maybe Conversion Optimizer.
And maybe Website Optimiser.
Google is unique in that they will give you (for free) all the tools you need to succeed online.
It’s easy to be cynical…
