information When Major Conglomerates Assist Small Businesses, Everyone Benefits!

Man oh man.... this article really struck a chord with me.

If only the folks at Big G and the BingHolio's could take Claude's advice and level the playing field and stop freakin penalizing affiliate sites. I was one of the folks that got taken down hard with the stupid panda updates and EMD changes.

Hopefully one day soon they get their heads out their asses and realize that they should be working together with affiliate marketers and not against. Off course it goes both way, as long as sites are quality and add value to their visitors they should not be penalized. Spammy sites with crap content and dodgy backlinks should obviously be penalized.

I had some sites which were Pandalized and dumped by EMD too - but I'm the first to admit they deserved it There are ways to stay in the good graces of the search gods, even if you are an affiliate. Lots of us have done it.

Here's what stood out to me from that article:

• The example sites mentioned are product feeds with no added value. They're exactly the kind of affiliate sites Google hates. Aside from the content, they have technical SEO issues. I would be surprised if they DID get search traction.
  
  Let's take the leather site. For starters, instead of just publishing pre-canned data, actually "sell" the products. Buy things and review them. Take pictures. Show people what's good and what sucks. Show how to coordinate outfits and accessories. Help people shop for different occasions, gifts for various occasions. Help your visitors and they'll help you.
  
  Organize the information in a way that's interesting, and useful in a way that goes beyond doing a search on Amazon. Because otherwise, why shouldn't I just go to Amazon?
  
  
• Duplicate content and thin content gets dinged on any site, not just affiliate sites. Ecommerce sites using merchant feeds with the exact same text as everybody else that sells the product get hit too. If a product is driving conversions, differentiate your page from the rest.