Google Thin Affiliate Site Myth Exploded
I’ve recorded a movie debunking the Google Thin Affiliate Site Myth.
Watch the movie and draw your own conclusions. Does Google really hate thin affiliate sites that provide relevant results to specific long tail keyword searches?
What do you think? Please comment below…
July 9th, 2008 at 8:44 pm
I don’t really think the argument against “thin” affiliate sites is that will not show up in google. I think the argument is that they will not outrank a “thick” content site on the same search terms.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Great video, Neil! I tend to agree with you that Google’s main goal is to give its users relevant content. If your site has what they are looking for then Google does a pretty good job of putting two and two together, regardless of the size of the site.
Where would I find the post or video that came before this video? You referred to it at the beginning of the video.
thanks
July 9th, 2008 at 9:16 pm
Neil I think I just asked you basically this question 2 minutes ago by email! I’m not sure what all the talk of thin / thick /fat sites means.
is it to do with the quality score for adwords?
or just with dropping MFA sites from the index?
All 10 day cash secret does is use syndication which seems to be a big fraction of the web. Whether it is news organisations or medical websites or article directories there’s a heck of alot of syndication
But let’s run with Hamo above and say that you put a few static pages on your WP feed blog with info from the merchant.
would that help the site to do better in the SERPS?
:-)
Alex
July 9th, 2008 at 9:28 pm
This is the plight of a lot of websites. There are so many socalled thin affiliate sites that are making money. I have content, but not a lot. I am trying to build it up by writing my own articles, but this is so time consuming. They keep saying content is the key, and I would like to provide fresh new content so my webssite will get more organic traffic. Neil you seem very informed on many matters concerning traffic. I think I saw you on the StartUP Biz website. I am just starting out trying to get my affiliate website off the ground, so this was very informative and encouraging for me.
July 9th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
Neil,
If it brings traffic and profit to Google it does not matter how “thin” it is. Great Info!
You gave sales figures for the wine sold over 6 months. What was your commsion?
Thanks - Samuel C
July 9th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I think the argument against thin affiliate sites is that without fresh relevant content (i.e. unique enough that it is probably not solely from a datafeed that others are already using), your website traffic options are hampered. For example, Adwords cost you more for the same position, and your seo ranking fails to improve. Having said that, of course Google would prefer your perfectly matched search result versus returning nothing. But is being the first to provide a result for a hitherto unknown long tail keyword phrase a robust enough business strategy to ensure sustainable and sufficient revenues on autopilot?
July 9th, 2008 at 9:32 pm
@ Hamo, I agree, but that’s not how the question is usually phrased. Usually people say “google hates thin affiliate sites” and the inference is that they won’t get listed.
@ Wes, thanks.
please see…
http://www.neilshearing.com/gurusknownothing/
@ Alex, “thin sites” are supposedly those that regurgitate content (syndication) without adding anything original and are “frowned” on by Google… who would prefer you to create unique content. I don’t think a few static pages would help a site with 1,000 autogenerated blog posts rank any better. But then, my argument is that those 1,000 pages would rank well enough if they provide something useful to Google’s users.
Neil.
July 9th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
Hello Neil,
I totally agree with you.
It’s obvious that you’re right.
Please check this video:
Google
Cheers,
Emeric
July 9th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
Hello Neil,
Top notch, and I am in total agreement. There really should be no dispute over this. Those who throw out irrelevant sites just to attempt to capitalize on a phrase without any true content and information just muddy the search results.
Anyone can put together a proper site, whether “thin” or “thick”, and make it work with Google results. It’s not good to try to re-invent the wheel or buck the system.
Cheers,
Paul
July 9th, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Neil,
No argument with you in niches where there are very few if any websites. This happens frequently with new product launches, where the thin affiliate sites show up near the top of the results pages.
But I think you will find as a niche matures or becomes highly competitive, the sites containing additional content will move past the thin sites.
Mick
July 9th, 2008 at 10:30 pm
Neil,
No argument with you in niches where there are very few if any websites. This happens frequently with new product launches, where the thin affiliate sites show up near the top of the results pages.
But I think you will find as a niche matures or becomes highly competitive, the sites containing additional content will move past the thin sites.
Mick
July 9th, 2008 at 10:47 pm
Hi Neil
I’m with you on this one, I’d have thought that Google would rather have one hit rather than no hits with their search engine for their users. Whether its a thin or thick site, they get a hit.
I seam to remember people saying the same thing about doorway pages some time ago and that Google didn’t like them, too, but people are still using them today to drive traffic to their sites.
Keep up the good work.
Cheers
Robert
Platinum eBooks
July 9th, 2008 at 11:19 pm
They also say that Google don’t like many niches. When you look at wikipedia you can see it is not true.
July 9th, 2008 at 11:32 pm
You certainly make sense. Useful information for a subject looked for is always appreciated, at least I hope so.
Of course, the trick is to come up with sufficient useful information.
Inge
July 9th, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Hi Neil,
what a great concept - your explanation concerning what Google likes is by far the best I’ve ever heard.
Cheers,
Dave
July 10th, 2008 at 12:40 am
Hi Neil,
My first sales came from a product launch, where I set up a blogger blog,
did a Squidoo page etc.
Thin affiliate site…absolutely!!! Because I did some work on it ( very beginnerish) and, as you point out in the video if it’s a keyword term off the main highway google will happily rank it if it is useful to their users.
I last posted around 6 months ago and I still rank No#1 on google and yahoo for the search phrase… Ultimate Website Conversion Course.
Any one want to check it out…confirms exactly what you are saying Neil.
Cheers…Geoff
July 10th, 2008 at 1:23 am
Google doesn’t care…Remember we are talking about a ROBOT!
Or a huge program that devours everything that it thinks is valuable to itself…then spits out stuff that if doesn’t like. What it doesn’t like is anybody’s guess? Many have good answers but most are only half arsh right.
The Google Bot does it’s best to give us the information we want…and it usually does but it is still a long ways off before it will consistenly give us the right and truthful information we are all searching for.
Paul
July 10th, 2008 at 1:29 am
I don’t think that google tracks all the affiliate sites. This “costs” to google. And don’t think that Google will want to spend that kind of investment to hate affiliate sites
July 10th, 2008 at 2:54 am
What you’ve said makes a lot of sense. Thanks for showing me the other side of the coin.
Cheers — Roger
July 10th, 2008 at 4:51 am
I totally agree about the “thin affiliate” myth. If I had listened to the so called experts, I would not have the number 1 spot on Google for a Very High paying keyword in the finance industry! When I approached several SEO companies four months ago about just getting me on page 1, I was told it would be near impossible and would cost thousands of dollars just to get to the top ten pages!
Now, four months later after I am #1, because I did not believe what I was being force fed! Oh, I did this without ANY outside help and without purchasing anything other than web space! Just do your own research and don’t fall for the myths!
July 10th, 2008 at 5:32 am
Neil,
You mention in your 10DayCashSecret that you put up a page every 5 minutes. Are you still doing that? I would have thought that putting up pages so fast would have tripped the spam filters.
But if you are still doing that and it works I definitely want to know as I”m doing it much slower than that right now.
Paul
July 10th, 2008 at 9:23 am
Neil, Google have absolutely stated - via their ‘leaked’ reviewer guidelines and from webspam honcho Matt Cutts - that they absolutely do not like thin affiliate sites.
That does not mean they won’t get listed - that’s the job of the Google listing software - but upon human review they may very well be dropped even if they’re the only things that come up against specific search terms.
So, to say that a thin affiliate site successfully appears in the SERPs for a specific search term is really on a reflection of how new it is - I’ve got loads of thin affiliate/directory sites that storm away when they first appear in the results but which subsequently drop out of sight.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Neil,
Great point! All Google wants is revelant content for the end user, that’s their job and purpose, nothing more nothing less. Except perhaps a revelant page to sell ad space on. Keep up the good work. And I must say, it is refreshing to actually recieve a video or information without a sales pitch, or to have to opt-in to recieve it.
Thanks, RWC
July 10th, 2008 at 10:29 am
@ Chris,
I don’t think thin sites will just “drop out” of the Google index unless they’re getting no traffic. If the thin site is getting traffic, it’s providing relevant results.
My guess is that, if a thin site gets a lot of traffic, Google will send a human to check it out… at which point it may drop out depending on what the human decides. But how many niche thin sites will ever get enough traffic to have a human sent around? I wouldn’t think many.
Neil.
July 10th, 2008 at 12:40 pm
I absolutely agree with what you are saying about Google wanting results, and if there are no other results they will welcome an affiliate sites relevant pages.
But in your video you stated your sites are purely made from affiliate datafeeds, this troubles me. You did mention something along the lines of maybe nobody else is using that particular datafeed. But in reality isn’t it more likely that hundreds or thousands of other affiliates are using the exact same datafeed with the exact same long tail search terms as you making the content from affiliate datafeeds just duplicate of many other sites?
July 10th, 2008 at 1:05 pm
Hi Neil,
Thanx for the good work!
July 10th, 2008 at 6:31 pm
Neil,
I think built within Google’s metrics are things to see how long people stay on pages as they can track an IP from the SERP to an AdSense page, which is what many of these have.
But I also think that when you are taking the time to post on a topic not covered in Google, the amount of traffic you will get will be negligent. There are too many people tackling any profitable item to keep it off the Internet long.
Kind regards,
Dave Jackson
www.NetDominate.com
July 10th, 2008 at 6:32 pm
That’s what I always say: Google wants relevant information! They want to find information just about anything…to keep and stay at No.1 search engine.
Marian
July 10th, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Hi Neil,
Useful information. I love it that you are busting out of conventional wisdom and exploring new territories and possibilities for online ventures.
July 10th, 2008 at 10:05 pm
Hey. Looks interesting.
Does anyone know the answer to the question someone posted about how
quickly the pages can go up with these sites?
That would be really important to me.
Deb
July 11th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Hi Neal,
Interesting post. I wouldn’t argue with what you say in your video and I don’t think many would.
However, I do think so called ‘thin affiliate pages’ will have a harder time gaining a high ranking in Google when they are targeting keywords that are also being targeted by many other pages.
In that case, I believe Google will start to bring factors into play other than relevance, such as originality of content, incoming links from related pages and page tenure.
Gary
July 11th, 2008 at 4:53 pm
Absolutely Neil,
of course google hates
“no results found”
more then thin pages.
That simply obviously a fact
Thanks for using
common sense instead of myths
greetings
Frank
July 12th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
I’ve been working at this system for a week and it is very exciting.
“Webmasters Business” above says”But in reality isn’t it more likely that hundreds or thousands of other affiliates are using the exact same datafeed with the exact same long tail search terms as you making the content from affiliate datafeeds just duplicate of many other sites? ”
When you test it you know it.
Earlier I helped a friend check 2 feeds in a niche: one had hundreds of competitors while the other had less than a handful.
The point is to do it not to believe what you think is true, just follow the instructions from some one who has “been there”
:-)
alex
July 21st, 2008 at 8:21 am
The affiliate site according to me wouldn’t be affected on Google being “thin” or “thick”. All it should be able to do is it’s core i.e providing a relevant content to the user. The size of the site does not matter with the content it has in it and if it is able to generate traffic Google won’t mind the size of the site.
_______________________________-
Scott
August 11th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
What you are saying is correct but I’m not sure if I entirely agree. I am a disabled guy in the highlands of Scotland, and I live in the middle of nowhere. I decided to build a site about Scottish Hotels, and use a hotel booking database (affilliate program) to generate money. I have over 200 inbound links to the site (all legit) and over 50 pages of unique content. Six months later and my site is nowhere to be seen on Google. In fact, if you run a search for “Scotland Hotels” and go through every page on Google, its not there. However, Google says my site is in its index and my sitemaps etc seem to show that to be true.
What you are saying is right with regards to phrases that have no current results on Google, but practically what use is that? I could build a site called “badgers using plug-in kettles on ice” tomorrow and I bet I could get straight to the top of Google for that phrase.
My point is this. I am only using the Scottish part f the hotel booking database, I’ve written a blog which is updated regularly, I’ve written over 50 pages of unique content, what visitors I’ve had (from yahoo) say they find my site very useful, and yet it’s nowhere to be seen on Google. There is no question to me that Google is penalising my site for being an affilliate. The affilliate program is perfectly legitimate, perfectly legal and above board. I poured all my savings into getting my site done, and I believe its of genuine use to people looking for Scotland Hotels. However, because Google conrols 80% of the UK search market, they can dictate terms to little guys like me. Its just wrong, in my opinion. I am very disheartened by the whole experience, and my little dream of being able to make money from my remote highland home is fading fast.
August 11th, 2008 at 2:39 pm
You have 84 pages in Google…
google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=site%3Awww.hotelsinscotland.org&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
… and the homepage is PageRank 3.
I don’t think Google is penalising your site, but 84 pages is not a whole lot to get traffic from.
Your problem is competition. When I search for “THE COPTHORNE HOTEL ABERDEEN”, using quotes, I get 907 results but when I search for “quality service received when staying at The Copthorne Hotel in Aberdeen”, yours is the only result.
You either need more pages, or more links to your current pages to out rank the competition.
Neil.
August 11th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Yes I agree with your comment about more pages,and I am working on that. however, this is a commercial site and the key phrase is “scotland hotels” which, under a UK based search, returns approx 400,000 results. A friend of mine who works for a software development company in Edinburgh assures me this is not a big number, and the fact is that Google will present 50 pages of reults for Scotland Hotels. There are pages with ONE paragraph using the term “scotland hotels” appearing in the reults, and yet I have lots of content and the majority of links pointing to my site that induce that term. To not appear at all, anywhere at all for that term, is surely a sign of being penalised. There is no point in optimising for phrases that are not being searched for. I’m even linked to by a government site, which si a huge benchmark for google, and yet no apearance. I have to optimise for terms that are actually being searched for.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:52 am
>I have to optimise for terms that are actually being searched for.<
Yes, you do.
But you also need to be realistic.
Try “great scotland hotels”, “best scotland hotels”, luxury scotland hotels, “great scottish hotels”, “best scottish hotels”, luxury scottish hotels, “hotels in scotland”.
You’ll get more traffic from a dozen longer tail key phrases, than one competitive phrase. Fighting 400,000 other pages that *exactly* match your primary keyphrase is not doing you any favours.
I found hotels.about.com (a major website) with PageRank4, on the fourth page of search results for “scotland hotels”.
I don’t see you being penalised. I see you competing for a phrase you’re not going to rank highly for without a lot more effort.
OK, digging deeper, I found your site on page 21 of the search results. The Title of your homepage badly lets you down. Instead of just “Scotland Hotels”, use something like, “Scotland Hotels, for the best Hotels in Scotland”. I think that will help. I also think that being the 202nd result out of 347,000 is a pretty good start, and you can get that higher with more hard work.
You could also use the Google Adwords Keyword tool to dig up more useful, low-competition keyphrases. I just found…
edinburgh hotels
glasgow hotels
scotland breaks
hotel inverness
scotland accommodation
inverness hotels
loch hotel
hotel oban
loch hotels
hotel pitlochry
scotland luxury hotels
the scotland hotel
aberdeen scotland hotels
hotel perth scotland
perth scotland hotels
scotland hotel deals
cheap scotland hotels
hotel breaks scotland
hotels dumfries scotland
castle hotel scotland
scotland spa hotels
luxury hotels in scotland
Neil.
August 12th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Yes Neil, I dont disagree with you about the other keyphrases, but with respect my site has quite a number of links, a lot of which have “scotland hotels” in them, many pages with that phrase, its in my domain name and yet my site is nowhere to be found for that term. 400,000 is not many for google. Even my Edinburgh city council directory entry, which is just a name and address, appears halfway through the results. Theres no doubt to me that if I am nowhere to be found in 50 pages of results for that many content pages, and with that many links, even from a government site, with that being the name of my business, six months later, its seems very likely to me. My friend with the software company said today ” stewart there are pages with one sentence appearing in that set of results and your site isn’t. Google has 900′d your site for being an affilliate site, your site should be there and it isnt.”
I apologise to your readers for using up the forum like this, and I thank you Neil for the effort you have made on my behalf. But this is the whole problem with this industry. One person says one thing, one says another, and the business is left guessing what to do. Its cost me a lot of money and a lot of heartache. This shouldn’t be a black art to get into the serps, or guess whether you’ve been punished or not. Googles monopoly position with uk search makes it unfair for them to dictate terms and just keep saying “its our index”. If a utility company was doing that, they’d get rapped on the knuckels.
Thankyou readers, and I’m sure you, and Neil, can understand my frustration.
S.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
Hi Stewart,
We’ll just have to agree to disagree, then. Your site is in the Google index. Your site has PageRank. Your site is listed at position 202 for a competitive keyphrase, and your ranking may well rise over time as you add unique content, keep the site online and gain links.
I don’t see a problem, but everyone’s entitled to their own opinion, and yours seems to be that your site has had some kind of penalty applied because it’s an “affiliate site”.
I wonder if that penalty applies to all sites that use affiliate links? This blog does… and so do many, many other high ranking websites.
Neil.
August 12th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I did some quick research on Yahoo for your links… they say your site has 430 links pointing to it, but of those 430, 427 point to the homepage.
That doesn’t seem like natural linking.. 99.3% of external links pointing to your homepage.
Also, a large percentage of those links are from scottishhighland.com, onestarhotels.net and scottishweb.net.
Google only reports 12 links into your site, 6 of which are from scottishweb.net, 2 from scottishhighland.com, one from your own site and two from some wordpress tags.
>> It’s not enough to rank your site highly. <<
I think you need more diversity of links. Try submitting articles to article directories.
Neil.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Yes Neil, some of those links are legacy links from the person that owned this domain before I did. I really do appreciate you looking into this for me. I know I sounded discouraged but im not a web expert and sometimes its hard going wading through the maze of information, and the conflicting things people tell me. I’ve had to muddle through things myself and try to figure things out. Incidentally the site is linked to from sites like tripadvisor and a few others, and google sees them on my sitemap but doesnt seem to see them with the link: command. I’m not disagreeing with you, I’m just suspicious of googles approach to affilliate sites, which is friustrating because the program I use is legitamate and legal, and in fact many folk have emailed me saying they find the site very useful.
August 14th, 2008 at 12:41 pm
Well, as long as the person who owned the domain before you wasn’t a blackhat spammer, I don’t think you have anything at all to worry about.
And, yes, Google doesn’t tell you all the links it knows about, which is why I did a Yahoo search for that information first.
Build more pages, get more links naturally, let your domain age and you’ll climb the rankings for “scotland hotels” over time.
Neil.
September 2nd, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Great insight. Thanks for the video.