Warning: “Thin Affiliate Sites”
Friday, February 20th, 2009
On our free webinar this week I mentioned “thin affiliate sites” and we also discussed it a bit on the latest IMTW Podcast (episode #11).
This is an important topic for those of you in Affiliate Marketing, so I wanted to expand on it a bit and explain exactly what it means and why you should avoid it…
Thin Affiliate Sites are basically doorway pages, or web pages/sites created solely for the purpose of being the go-between from the visitor to the merchant with no real other value added to the visitor experience.
Perry Marshall calls them an illegitimate businesses, Allan Gardyne talks about why “thin affiliate sites” are offensive to Google, and Michelle MacPhearson recently put out a video about a Social Media Slap. I put out a series last Fall on the Social Media Marketing Warning myself as well.
They’re all worth a study, and they all go hand in hand for Affiliate Marketers.
Why?
Allan Gardyne explained it well in his article, discussing Google’s perspective on Thin Affiliate Sites:
Google says: “We differentiate between affiliates that produce extra service, value, or content, and those that simply are duplicates of other sites, set up to boost traffic to other sites and earn a commission for it. The former ones are not Offensive and should be rated on the merits to the query. The latter ones are Offensive…
“Thin affiliate doorways are sites that usher people to a number of Affiliate programs, earning a commission for doing so, while providing little or no value-added content or service to the user. A site certainly has the right to try to earn income; we’re attempting to identify sites that do nothing but act as a commission-earning middleman.”
Google also says: “Do not call a page affiliate spam when an affiliation is only incidental to the message and purpose of a website. To determine whether participation in affiliate programs is central or incidental to the site’s existence, ask yourself this question: Would this site remain a coherent whole if the pages leading to the affiliate (merchant) were taken away?”
That probably counts out most affiliate sites. -source
These quotes were pulled from an internal document that Google uses to train human agents they hire to evaluate their search results for accuracy. You can read more about that document at the source.
The bottom line is that to be a successful affiliate, you have to add value to the sales process - and for your target market. You have to bring something to the table to add to the buying experience, whether that be helping in the decision making process, product reviews, tips on how to use the product, unique applications of the product, etc.
Otherwise you’re just throwing out affiliate links, or creating what is called “thin affiliate sites”. If there’s no added value, what reason would someone come through your link instead of just going straight to the source themselves?
And if there’s no added value for human visitors, what reason would Google have to rank your affiliate pages well?
Look at ways that you can add value to the process. Make sure your affiliate sites, or even affiliate pages on your site, could stand on their own content-wise even without the affiliate links.
Best,
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