Google Slap
Posted on June 2, 2008
Filed Under Adwords, Internet Marketing
Google has taken the turn.
The “100 PHDs in white lab coats” have been replaced by cheap, outsourced ESL labor.
I have no problem with ESLers - I do have a problem with them making decisions for my business based on a clear lack of understanding of MY business and their attempts to interpret Google’s rules. Don’t tell me “Google Slap” will improve my ROI - people click on my ads and always have. People take the actions I want them to take at my site. I have tracked and tested this for years and I do what I do because it is PROVEN TO WORK.
In short, X is feeling the pain of being Google slapped after years of running my business the way I want to run it and Google should mind it’s own damn business.
While Google KNOWS NOTHING about actually selling a tangible good online - just scraping other people’s content and selling ads on it - they think they know what’s best for my ROI. You know what Google? You might know algorithms, but you don’t know crap about my ROI - I wouldn’t do what I do if my ROI wasn’t great.
Since Google is and has been an important source of traffic I have to adapt to what the system will give me, just like everyone else. Failure to do so is stupid. What this means in my case is something inevitably devious - a way to work the system. And you better believe I’m ready to work their system and give them the finger - nobody beats X when it matters. That includes Google.
What have I changed about my approach (that I’m willing to share now - and unfortunately I can’t share much anymore without some wannabe “Rockstar” or tag-along X ripping it off and putting it in “their” ebook. Just wait and watch after I unleash my next offer - there will be a ton of new copycat products soon to follow. To be honest with you, this has pissed me off to the extent that I was going to leave this niche until John Hostler reminded me “This niche really needs some people who care about producing good value for the customer.” I agree.)First, Google does like blogs. I have been converting all of my sites over to blogs anyway and the same basic setup I use has gone from poor quality scores to great quality scores.
The lesson? Just like in the days when I was heavy into page generator sites, you want to make “things” appear to be something other than what they are. To be somewhat more clear, when I did page generator sites the scraped content was the first thing read by the spiders but what the human eye saw was a relevant and targeted article on a page that looked great (most of these sites ARE STILL ranked and ranked well). The human eye really didn’t NOTICE the scraped content on the page - it wasn’t the focal point of the page.
NOTE: Once a domain has been slapped it’s all but dead with Google. Build your new campaign on a new domain name.
Second, my theory is that Google is pushing advertisers towards the content network. Traffic to the search engine is finite and they’ve probably grown the majority of what they can - traffic to the rest of the Internet has far greater potential. So far it seems anything goes on the content network and I’m making that traffic work just as well as Adwords search network did a year or two back. In other words, with the right approach it works great.
If you want to hear more about what I’m up to and what’s working for me, plan on attending the Internet Marketing Super Conference June 19-22 in Las Vegas. I’ll also share one of my recent “Smack me in the side of the head” revelations about where the BEST affiliate programs to promote can be found. I can’t believe I didn’t realize this years ago but it’s the one thing every super-producing affiliate campaign I’ve ever run over a long period of time has in common.
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