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12.10.09 SEO And PPC Will Require More Time In The Future  By Andrew Wee Unless you've been sleeping at the wheel, the last couple of weeks have been turbulent ones for many PPC affiliates, especially Adwords users. There's been a spat of account bans (as discussed in my internet marketing forum), and even though Nick Fox told Search Engine Land's Barry Schwartz that suspended Adwords advertisers... ...can send an email to initiate an "appeals process", the anecdotal evidence suggests that aside from canned email responses, affiliates suspended from Adwords can do little more than post a bitchy post on their blog, or create a complaint thread on one of a number of public and private marketing forums. So is this the beginning of the end of PPC? It's easy to go the Fox Mulder route and assume that they're out to get you (which isn't paranoia if someone is really out to get you…). I think it has to do with the natural process of evolution. Let's look at search engine optimization (SEO) for a second. Remember the old days (ie: the early 1990s) when SEO meant you stuffed a bunch of keywords into your title tag, meta tags and had a keyword density of about 10% or higher for your money keywords? Where content consisted of engaging reading like "Payday loans can be a source of ready financing because payday loans give you an opportunity to get an immediate cash advance, and payday loans" (you get the idea). Keyword stuffing has long gone out the window, leading some to throw it and go the MySpace bulletin spamming route, while others starting focusing more on their link buying and still others used trackback spamming, referrer spamming and other assorted goodies. A small proportion of webmasters, however, looked at the writing on the wall and focused on auditing their key audience's burning needs, then set about creating an easy-to-use content-focused website which also featured advertising or affiliate products addressing the problem. While the SERPs aren't perfect by any means, they're a heck of a lot better than before. And with Google's decision to incorporate real time results from the likes of twitter and other social media, there's a small window for gray or blackhat SEO marketers to exploit any loopholes before they're closed up again. - So what's happening with PPC? Aside from the Adwords shitestorm, it looks like the heat is gradually spreading to other PPC networks too, with MSN/Bing reportedly sending out warning shots and in some cases suspending accounts. Again, it looks like the PPC networks are wising up and possibly attempt to drop arbitrage and thin landing page affiliates from their network. Is this a wise move? Is there a slew of traditional businesses lined up ready to fill the vacuum once the affiliates are kicked out? I don't think so. It wouldn't be fair to say that Google is "anti-affiliate", else their purchase of Performics (renamed the Google Affiliate Network or GAN for short) would be like stabbing themselves in the left kidney - painful and not smart. I'd report on GAN's affiliate offers and promotion strategies, but I don't have an account there yet. Continue reading this article. About the Author: Andrew Wee is an Asia-based Internet Marketer focused on blogging, social traffic generation and affiliate marketing. Previously rated as one of Asia's top technology journalists, Andrew covers breaking news and industry developments at WhoIsAndrewWee.com |
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