Affiliate Marketing Blog by Shawn Collins

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It was nearly a year ago the AssociatePrograms.com newsletter shared a report indicating that Google employs people at a rate of $10 to $20 an hour to check search results at Google every day.

Back then, it was big news that Google apparently had a criteria guide which identified some sites in their results as “Thin Affiliate Doorway Pages.”

Some affiliates were in an uproar that Google would dare enforce some quality control over their results pages.

Earlier this week, Peter Figueredo wrote on ReveNews how Google recently updated their Quality Guidelines to include language geared to affiliates.

The new guidelines for quality Google results instruct Webmasters to adhere to a number of best practices, including:

• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Sounds like the “thin affiliates” are going on a strict diet of organic traffic this summer.

Predictably, some affiliates are up in arms. But why?

As far as I am concerned, any affiliate site that doesn’t add value should be removed from both Google and the respective affiliate programs it promotes. Nobody is entitled to placement in Google and the traffic that comes with being indexed.

The sticking point is exactly what does Google consider to be value?

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