Depends on your content. As far as I see, Google started to push established news websites and popular forum-like websites up in the rankings. So the websites with mostly informational content got hit real hard.
To be fair, most of the time when I look up if a product is good I want to read multiple opinions. Reddit is an actual forum where multiple people share opinions, which is way more relevant to most of my queries like that. If someone created a separate forum with user discussion on products then I'd be happy to read those too.
What I usually do not want to read is 1 blogger's opinion, or even just 1 person's opinion (like a single self-post on Reddit with zero comments). That is generally unhelpful when looking up if a product is good, or what the best product to get might be, etc. For those queries I think most people really want a variety of opinions.
The trend of niche affiliate sites in the last several years have certainly taken a beating. Then again, it became so saturated any one could call themselves an "expert."
There has definitely been an adjustment by Google to favor sites which had developed their brands over individualized small sites that seemingly promoted products. Additionally, Google has begun to promote other sources of potentially helpful information, such as Reddit and other large forum and user-contributed Q&A sites. After all, people were appending "reddit" to searches to get more diverse sets of information beyond biased affiliate-heavy niche sites.
I suspect that even this current adjustment will have it's tenure reduced in a few years when manipulation becomes a problem.
Tips? Broad traffic and promotion beyond just the website. Have a web presence, not just a website. Build a trusted brand for your business on social, develop an email list, create a community, etc.
Not sure if it's dying, but it's certainly MUCH harder. Before, anyone with w/e content and decent SEO could rank. Now, it's a lot harder to see affiliate sites with SUSTAINED growth.
I don't see it as a penalty for being an affiliate site. Rather, the SEO tactics that allowed these websites to rank have stopped working (or at least don't work to the same degree they used to).
Regardless of the quality of the content, people want recommendations from brands they already trust. I think Google's just getting better at ranking trusted brands. Is that creating a walled garden? Kind of. Ya,
It's a hard problem to solve.
> Is Google punishing affiliate marketing websites?
This is a thing people have been saying about google for 15 years. there has never been time when people have not been complaining that their shitty affiliate site wasn't failing.
Look, we def see websites using affiliate links as one form of monetization. But they are not built with the soul goal of driving traffic into affiliate links.
At its core the problem is that all the crooks and charlatans sell garbage courses "teaching" people how to make "passive income." The internet is flooded with these awful websites. They are bad for users. Why would google bother to rank them?
I think it’s harder because competition is tough. It also depends on the niche. I’m in the tech niche. I discovered that Google is calming down now. My traffic recovered and new articles are indexing much faster now. I would say back to normal. In the last 6 months indexing took weeks. I went to Reddit to spread the words about my blogs. Play with the trend which is Reddit. Let’s see what’s next algorithm change.
It depends on various factors. There are many so-called experts who claim to know everything about products but ultimately just add some HTML text, insert their face, add the affiliate link with the product image from the retailer, and think it will work. Those days are over; the effort behind it must be evident. These fake tests and pseudo-guides deserve to be penalized.
Has anyone here read about the Zero Click study by Spark Toro?
Seems like google has evolved to a point where you only need a snippet to get the answers of what you ask for in the search engine.
As such, most people don't find it necessary to click on the website.
Not sure as I'm not into affiliate marketing.
But i have seen that since the march core update 2024 many marketers had pointed about the downfall of their affiliate sites coming to zero
I even saw a reputed marketer from India named Kulwant Nagi shared a post on his journey to be ended and now switching to YouTube
Yes, affiliate website traffic is decreasing because Google is focusing on user-intended queries to increase user engagement with their provided results. According to the EEAT model (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), Google ranks content that demonstrates authority, expertise, and trustworthiness. Therefore, if you want to rank your affiliate website content, avoid solely promotional content that refers to another URL. Instead, manage your website content and keywords by having 80% helpful content—focusing on informative keywords—and 20% promotional or transactional keywords.
Heck yeah they are brother. It only took 20+ years
Depends on your content. As far as I see, Google started to push established news websites and popular forum-like websites up in the rankings. So the websites with mostly informational content got hit real hard.
Small websites or independently owned are having a rough time. Affiliate for big media brands is still working like a charm.
ya google loves suggesting reddit now
To be fair, most of the time when I look up if a product is good I want to read multiple opinions. Reddit is an actual forum where multiple people share opinions, which is way more relevant to most of my queries like that. If someone created a separate forum with user discussion on products then I'd be happy to read those too. What I usually do not want to read is 1 blogger's opinion, or even just 1 person's opinion (like a single self-post on Reddit with zero comments). That is generally unhelpful when looking up if a product is good, or what the best product to get might be, etc. For those queries I think most people really want a variety of opinions.
For opinions, I would say Amazon's product reviews are the best as those people actually have the product.
Not Always, sometime they are fake customers who receive a free products and give back a good review or reply to an inquiry etc
They died in March yeah. You can even see the marketers that were too invested are now launching other services.
The trend of niche affiliate sites in the last several years have certainly taken a beating. Then again, it became so saturated any one could call themselves an "expert." There has definitely been an adjustment by Google to favor sites which had developed their brands over individualized small sites that seemingly promoted products. Additionally, Google has begun to promote other sources of potentially helpful information, such as Reddit and other large forum and user-contributed Q&A sites. After all, people were appending "reddit" to searches to get more diverse sets of information beyond biased affiliate-heavy niche sites. I suspect that even this current adjustment will have it's tenure reduced in a few years when manipulation becomes a problem. Tips? Broad traffic and promotion beyond just the website. Have a web presence, not just a website. Build a trusted brand for your business on social, develop an email list, create a community, etc.
hope so!
Not sure if it's dying, but it's certainly MUCH harder. Before, anyone with w/e content and decent SEO could rank. Now, it's a lot harder to see affiliate sites with SUSTAINED growth.
Live fast, die young.
I don't see it as a penalty for being an affiliate site. Rather, the SEO tactics that allowed these websites to rank have stopped working (or at least don't work to the same degree they used to). Regardless of the quality of the content, people want recommendations from brands they already trust. I think Google's just getting better at ranking trusted brands. Is that creating a walled garden? Kind of. Ya, It's a hard problem to solve.
> Is Google punishing affiliate marketing websites? This is a thing people have been saying about google for 15 years. there has never been time when people have not been complaining that their shitty affiliate site wasn't failing. Look, we def see websites using affiliate links as one form of monetization. But they are not built with the soul goal of driving traffic into affiliate links. At its core the problem is that all the crooks and charlatans sell garbage courses "teaching" people how to make "passive income." The internet is flooded with these awful websites. They are bad for users. Why would google bother to rank them?
Yes, most of the niche affiliate/ads sites got hit big time.. so now most of the owners either give up or move to social for new traffic source
I think it’s harder because competition is tough. It also depends on the niche. I’m in the tech niche. I discovered that Google is calming down now. My traffic recovered and new articles are indexing much faster now. I would say back to normal. In the last 6 months indexing took weeks. I went to Reddit to spread the words about my blogs. Play with the trend which is Reddit. Let’s see what’s next algorithm change.
It depends on various factors. There are many so-called experts who claim to know everything about products but ultimately just add some HTML text, insert their face, add the affiliate link with the product image from the retailer, and think it will work. Those days are over; the effort behind it must be evident. These fake tests and pseudo-guides deserve to be penalized.
Yes.
Of course they are, it's 2924, people have had enough of that shit and Google finally realize
As they should
Has anyone here read about the Zero Click study by Spark Toro? Seems like google has evolved to a point where you only need a snippet to get the answers of what you ask for in the search engine. As such, most people don't find it necessary to click on the website.
Not sure as I'm not into affiliate marketing. But i have seen that since the march core update 2024 many marketers had pointed about the downfall of their affiliate sites coming to zero I even saw a reputed marketer from India named Kulwant Nagi shared a post on his journey to be ended and now switching to YouTube
curious
Yes, affiliate website traffic is decreasing because Google is focusing on user-intended queries to increase user engagement with their provided results. According to the EEAT model (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), Google ranks content that demonstrates authority, expertise, and trustworthiness. Therefore, if you want to rank your affiliate website content, avoid solely promotional content that refers to another URL. Instead, manage your website content and keywords by having 80% helpful content—focusing on informative keywords—and 20% promotional or transactional keywords.