Avoiding the Google Slap
July 29th, 2010
Written by: Beau Blackwell, Community Manager
A common fear among Internet marketers these days is the dreaded “Google slap.” If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to Google significantly lowering the Quality Score of AdWords ad/advertisers, or banning them from advertising on AdWords outright.
Since Google slaps can be a big concern for ClickBank affiliates and vendors, we’ve made a concerted effort to work with Google to identify what causes them to lower the Quality Score of particular ads or landing pages. Now we’d like to share what we’ve learned with you so you can ensure your advertising and landing pages meet Google’s quality guidelines and maintain a positive Quality Score.
We’ve condensed the information we’ve learned directly from Google into the following videos, which discuss topics like the purpose of Quality Score, what goes into Quality Score calculation, specific techniques and page elements that Google frowns upon, and what to do if you’ve been “slapped.” As we learn more about this issue, we’ll continue to share it with you. Feel free to leave comments with questions or concerns, and we’ll try to get them answered for you.
About Beau BlackwellBeau is the Client Knowledge Guru for ClickBank and covers the latest trends, tips and techniques for building profitable Internet marketing businesses.
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Posted in Affiliate Tips, Strategies for Success, Vendor Tips | 
Tags: advertising, affiliate, google, landing pages, ppc, quality score, slap, vendor
I got slapped on June and carried out corrections and resubmitted the site to Google adwords team.
I am yet to get a reply from Google team.
How long should I wait?
Google is providing a free keyword tool to adwords advertisers.
Likewise why don’t they provide a landing page quality tool?
Congrats to ClickBank for this great videos.
Thanks for this info.
It’s amazing they told you anything from what everyone who has been slapped says!
Congrats…
Kindest,
Poppie
Where is the link to Google’s affiliate guide as mentioned in the video?
Is there a guideline from Google as to what are considered good landing page elements?
Can we use landing page as Home Page to increase the opt-in rate? Does Google like it or hate it?
Why is the CTR one of the main factors for the quality score? The CTR (of the ad) doesn’t say anything about the quality of the website, but only about the quality of the ad’s text. I can’t believe that this is the most important factor.
Carl,
The link is included in the description of Part 1, but here’s the link:
https://adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=14844
I’ve not seen a specific guideline from Google about what they consider good landing page elements. I think the only real guideline is “unique, relevant content related to the search term.” I’m sure that’s probably not what you were looking for, but I think it’s easier for them to look for things they don’t like than to lay out specifics that they do like.
As far as your home page question goes, I’m not quite sure if I understand, but I don’t think there’s any specific problem with a landing page being a site’s home page rather than being an internal page.
I have learnt off well known gurus at high priced seminars that to avoid the google slap your site needs to have: 10 articles on it at least (and they MUST be good content filled articles, not rubbish), a privacy policy, a terms of service page, a logo for your product or service, a sitemap, a contact form, a picture of what you are giving away if you use an opt in page, plus warranties, disclaimers and legal rights, and earning sdisclaimers.
I went through years of hell trying to learn all that info and I finally found it so don’t take it lightly. I thought I’d share it with you so that I can help others not have to go through what I went through to learn all that, which is thousands of dollars I spent on my education.
With the 10 articles that you put on your site, you scatter your affiliate link through the articles, putting it in here and there. Also make any images you show also contain your affiliate link so if people click on the images on your site, they are really clicking on your affiliate link
Good luck peoples!!
I liked your video–they were good.
However if Google is telling people they “warn” them before shutting down their entire Adwords account it is simply not true. This happened to me in December when they apparently swept through and shut down 100,000 accounts. I had one affiliate campaign (out of many) they had not liked and had turned off months before. They came through, closing the entire account without explanation, INCLUDING two campaigns to our own web sites that direct sell physical products online–not affiliate. I promptly got another account with another name and was up in a couple of hours for these two sites.
However, my point is I had no warning and certainly no explanation for such a ridiculous move on their part. I am sure it was over the affiliate pages they did not like and which I had deleted months before. There has never been any recourse, and certainly no explanation, suggestions for a fix, etc. For one thing I know there was nothing wrong with the 2 websites selling physical products. They made no attempt to turn off one campaign–just shut down the whole account.
I don’t believe they will bother with working with the “little guy” Follow the money–it’s the big corporate accounts that get catered to. Skip Google. Do Yahoo, Bing and Media buys for affiliate products. It’s risky and they are very capricious in their actions.
I personally do not use Adwords, because it is one marketing medium that I am not very familiar with. The fact of the matter is that there are countless other ways to get your message delivered to your target market, which is why Adwords should only be a part of your overall marketing strategy.
Nonetheless, thanks for the great tips, and I will pass this blog posts on to some of my friends who do you use Adwords frequently!
Google Adwords has banned thousands of users. They banned me claiming a page/website I had advertised with them for over a year, suddenly didn’t met their TOS, huh? Course you will never get a warning and without an ad agency in your corner, good luck even getting in contact with them at adwords.
These videos should be required viewing by all clickbank advertisers but are no guarantee even if followed Google will not ban you. Just a matter of time IMHO, even if you follow the rules.
I think clickbank needs to understand one risks a lifetime ban with google by simply being affiliated with clickbank. I think it boils down to the old “do not link to bad neighborhoods” rule. Read enough on forums to indicate even those of us following the rules and having thick sites will still be banned eventually because of the link connection. I can conclude little else.
Michael,
Quality Score applies both to the ad itself and to the landing page. They’re actually separate things, so the CTR only factors into the ad’s Quality Score, whereas on-page elements factor into the landing page score.
Is Google serious?
They actually have the audacity to believe that it’s okay to demand that advertisers change their “advertisements” into something “informational” while making advertisers PAY FOR IT out of their own pockets? What a crock!!
If I want to ADVERTISE then I should be able to put up my advertisement as I want to market my product since I’m paying good money for the advertisement. I don’t have lewd, offensive, or ridiculous ads. I advertise my product(s) as any other marketer would. Since I’m paying for it and NOT getting it for free, why the heck should Google care? Do they honestly believe that I’m going to pay $1, $2 or MORE per click to post an informational blog that sells nothing? Are they freaking crazy??
And as a CONSUMER, why would I want to type in a product I’m looking for just to click on an AD (knowing full well that it’s an AD TO SELL ME SOMETHING) just to end up on some lengthy blog-like page explaining the history or ins and outs of, say, graphic tees? No, just show me the freaking t-shirts so I can look at them, pick some out, and BUY THEM! Google isn’t doing me, the consumer, a favor forcing “information” or “quality content” down my throat when I’m looking to buy something!
The issue with the “irrelevant” ads or keywords that don’t match the content of the site has nothing to do with most small advertisers or affiliate marketers because budgeting small business owners wouldn’t dare waste good money on bogus irrelevant keywords. Large companies like eBay are mostly to blame for that. We’ve all seen those stupid bogus Adsense ads like this:
“Are you looking for BILLY BUCK?
Find BILLY BUCK and other products
on eBay today.”
You click on the link and you find NOTHING RELEVANT about the keyword.
Is eBay going to get slapped to? After all, they are the BIGGEST KEYWORD VIOLATORS out there!
It seems that the people running Google are out on vacation and a pile of algorithym-obsessed computer geeks took over the joint; having no business mind (ad sales = Google profits) but rather the mind of a rotted sex-deprived pimple-puss computer junkies accepting chump change from a company that is worth billions a year (take out successful online marketers = sick, twisted, and perverted satisfaction) and they have no idea that Google’s days are now limited because of what they’ve done!
Go Yahoo! Maybe in a year you’ll be able to buy Google out. After all, in about 12 months they’ll be worth about $15. Even Bernie Madoff would be able to buy them out on his meager 12-cent-an-hour prison earnings.
A couple of years ago (right after Meg Whitman left) eBay went through the same type of self-destructing “change” where they suddenly wanted to change their successful business model from “international garage sale” to “overstock.com knock-off.”
First rule of business: You can’t change a successful business model mid-stream after you’ve already become (and have been functioning for MANY YEARS) as a multi-billion dollar per year company.
Second rule of business: You can’t bite the hand that feeds you.
eBay has yet to recover from their extreme make-over as sales still spiral downward. Google will soon suffer the same fate.
Quite honestly, I don’t give a damn what happens. I’m continually focusing on offline marketing methods that are tested, tried, and proven. Anyone depending on Google or any other single marketing source is a fool to begin with.
Great videos, the main problem from my experience is the “thin affiliate” thing, especially if you promote just one product. From Google’s point of view, unique and relevant content itself DOES NOT mean extra value, it must be content different from what the merchants page delivers, so just repeating or rewriting isn’t enough. In addition, you still are at risk being classified as a “bridge page” that only has the purpose to guide visitors to the merchants site.
Another big issue is the product niche, any “make money online” products will almost get slapped with a 100% guarantee. It’s a niche dancing on the razors edge, even with real testimonials, since we all know who is making the money in this game and how many customers actually see 6 digit incomes after buying it. If you can’t assure ALL customers will see those income numbers, stay away from promoting via Adwords. Same for the health and dieting niche, it’s closely monitored by Google and one wrong step will unleash the full wrath of Big G upon the unlucky affiliate.
@Stephen: Clickbank isn’t the problem, you are all fine with direct linking if the product site meets Google’s guidelines. What you absolutely shoudn’t do is review sites for a single product, without any comparison, a real and extensive review or referring to other informational sources on a topic. The typical “Is … scam?” or “… Bonus” review sites won’t cut it any more. Again, alot of content doesn’t mean it’s helpful or useful content from Google’s point of view. On the other hand a simple comparison site with different products an little content can do wonders.
@Sylvia: The only thing that matters for Google is the upload protocol, so even an ad that was live for 1 second can ruin your account. Active or not, volume or not doesn’t matter in regards of the landing page quality. It didn’t only hit the little guys, 7 digit budget heavy hitters were kicked the same way.
@Christina: Certainly a smart way to prevent a slap, but as you say, the content must be rock solid and provide value the merchant page itself doesn’t offer. Also the affiliate must make sure the disclaimer etc. are specific to the affiliate site, copying this stuff from the marchant site is deadly Adwords wise.
Some info on getting over being suspended from google would be great. I’m sure lots of people have been hit by they extra hard hit. It’s really tough to get back in and advertise your site.
@Florian
Good points and if one wants more info on how the game changed (actually in 2003 but for good when the FTC dropped the hammer last year)…”google” the kw Hilltop algorithm.
I think Google Adwords is simply eliminating risk. Not all CB products are junk, but many are, who argues that?. Someplace there is a crud ratio and CB fails that standard. I know what I was promoting was a good offering which over delivered. However that didn’t matter because the source is viewed as sketchy now. Easier for Adwords to do like Youtube does and simply remove the risk wholesale.
Putting more perfume on pigs may work for a time, but is not anything which could be called a solid business model. Not about the tricks anymore.
The caution I would add is just because you may still be flying with what are basically fake review websites or meeting some new guidelines, is no guarantee you are out of the woods. The problem is you are still offering (linking) to bad neighborhoods. What’s to stop anybody from emailing google and complaining about that? Is google really going to go to bat for you? Google already knows your linking structure. They are now applying broader quality standards to your links. Cloaking may work now, but it does not stop a disgruntled customer.
Google slapping me is a massive dred,
it is scary what powers google can have over affiliate marketers.
Last summer I was banned for life by Google for my Adwords selling a certain Clickbank product which Google didn’t like (they said it had “anti-Google” sentiments). However, the big flaw was that I NEVER sold that product.I’d never even heard of it!! After months of emails, trying to set up a new account under a family members name, etc., I gave up. I only do SEO marketing now, but that clearly isn’t safe either. I’m quite happy to not be paying Google for advertising. I think Google is a not-so-benevolent dictatorship that is ruining the internet but that is another story.
Regarding video 2:
Are you saying that an algorithm is able to ascertain all those “specifics”?
I can undesrtand that a person can tell if a review is cosha but can a bot really do that?
Is every website now 100% reviewed by a “person”?
I want to add to what people said already. Google happily bans any site that talks of make money, make money quick etc. Even if you have a site with 1000 pages and one of them is a make money page, then your site is likely to get you banned. They hate this one page and sacrifice your great site. They don’t let you put this site up in adwords and they don’t let you start a new adsense account with that site either. Those who don’t believe me can try making an adsense account with your site. If they review and don’t let you start a new adsense account then you might as well remove any page or affiliate link for money making, from your site immediately. I learned it the hard way. You are welcome to do the same or believe me.
I think that I might do mobile marketing- it has nothing to do with google so there are no silly rules or alogarithms and there are no google slaps. Google itself just said that in 3 years time, the desktop will be obsolete, as everything will be mobile. You CAN promote clickbank prodcuts as an affiliate using mobile marketing, and the clicks are way cheap, like 4 cents a click on mobiles, so why not?
After two months time I got a mail from Google saying that the suspension of my adwords account cannot be revoked.
I have been sending mails regularly during these two months time.
Really cannot understand what is going on?
Why google authorities are not spending time to look at the grievances of people like me?
How can a big company like google can afford to do that?
Whole thing looks strange.
The videos were very informative. But once I fix the problems on my landing page, exactly how do I resubmit my site to Google Adwords?
The statement about CTR influencing their decision to ban is total crap.
I was seeing CTR’s of 8 – 10% for most of my campaigns.
They just don’t like affiliates, especially clickbank affiliates.
Go head and try to promote a clickbank product using Adwords and see what happens.
(For the record, I love clickbank and have been happily getting paid clickbank
)
commissions on time every time since November of 2005
Google won’t let you back in. And if they do, they will make you wait months on end.
They are not the only show in town. I still use them, but obviously not for paid traffic.
I get my sites ranked on page one and get traffic from them anyway…and for free.
Good luck getting your accounts back, but don’t count on it.
They aren’t the only show in town.
All The Best,
Jason Dinner
http://JasonDinnerFanPage.com
Its good to know that slaps are not necessarily permanent. It wouldn’t be fair to totally spoil a URL name!
I have a big question on the part that mentions “Excessive or unverifiable claims” as one of things Google frowns upon.
How in the WORLD can Googlebot tell what is an excessive or unverifiable claim? I know they can look for phrases like “get rich fast”, etc, but other than that, could they REALLY do any in-depth review of the affiliate’s claims?
Any thoughts on how this might be done? Thanks
Jemie,
Reviews of “unverifiable claims” are performed by Google employees. Google does a mix of automated and manual reviews of sites.
CB needs to furnish to everybody REFUND rates on the items offered and sold via CB. Makes no sense to me why they do not. Truth is if they featured this and backed it up with action, they could seriously reposition themselves positively in an industry full of flakes not interested in being open.
List the refund rates. Clean out the invalid offers from the marketplace. Ban abusers and those who simply use CB to enhance a domain selling effort.
Hi:
Thanks for the great videos on Google ‘slap’ and how to avoid it.
Can you tell me how to find out what Google’s ‘quality score’ is for a given website?
Thank you.
It really scares me to hear all the Negative things about Google…I am new to this and have only got one approved…I can’t find it anywhere on the website…it this all a scam?
Have I been scamed again….I can’t get any help from Google.
Thanks for the video on the Google slap. I have definitely have to watch out for that.
I learned that building multiple web pages on the site will help not to get slapped compared to only linking the Ad to a single page.
Let’s spread the word – don’t use Google for your main search engine. I agree with @Monica’s comments. Using alternatives for web-surfing and ads on those sites so far are much less expensive.
All this Google ‘slapping’ behaviour is depressing me. I’m only new to this and I have spent so much time reading and learning what needs to be done in order to get anywhere as an affiliate marketer.
I have become very motivated to do well, but today Google grabbed me by my actual fringe, slapped me, and then back-hand slapped me.
This is why I have ended up here to try and work out what is going on?
The videos where very good and I can see where Google are coming from. They are simply maintaining their product to retain the position as the worlds preferred search engine.
Fair enough.
Can you imagine how many slapped AdWords account holders would be calling and emailing AdWords to resolve their account issues?
Sounds to me like the Google team that physically view landing pages and so on all day are also the actual slappers. Just view, slap, view, slap all day. They simply don’t have the time to personally respond to your email, or return your call. Forget it.
Hopefully I will have better luck taking some of the other avenues and try to avoid the view and slap thing again.
I need to find some quality CB sites to market because the few I have chosen so far even I found annoying with the ‘wait, wait, don’t go. please’ when you try to shut the browser.
Stupid.
(I did mention I was new at this. Still learning)
But I wont give up!
It’s funny that the descriptions of ‘what google doesnt like’ is a great description of 90% of your advertisers. But great videos nevertheless.
Thanks to CB for their effort to avoid its members to be slapped out (although it is too late for me).
I totally got all related things with Google and its components out of my life as they slapped me from Adwords without any warn, chance to fix, etc. All the same ridiculous things as written in comments above. This was the only thing I could do against big GOOGLE. I really don’t need Google. But it seems Google will need me in the future as they are losing too many people as the result of such these nonsense activities. I believe I should react in any way to stop these ill brains.
I’ve never been slapped by Google, but on a personal level I find it annoying when I am searching for a specific item/word and I end up on a landing page that has nothing to do with my search word or phrase. Hats off to Google for keeping their search customers as their main focus. These videos were great – thanks for taking the time to explain.
hi,
i am one of very new affiliates of clickbank and after just 4 days of promoting some products, i notified that my ads have been stopped because of some undifined “site quality” reasons. also they closed my account because my several ads with same problems. and i have just stood up alone.
although these videos up there are useful ones, i think, the most powerful help of the clickbank team for their marketers and affiliates shall be to give some clues of which product can pass this slap, in other words, which products fit google’s “site quality” criteria.
i am also looking for another ad centers..
good sells to everyone!
Guess we all have to live with google’s gorilla tactics until they wake up some morning and their choices have affected their wallets. Let’s hope that day comes sooner than later. Meanwhile, we walk on eggshells waiting for google to change the rules in the middle of the game. As long as I can find alternatives to google ad programs, I choose not to feed the 700 pound gorilla and would advise others to do the same if possible.
UPDATE – Despite being slapped and banned months ago by Google, they still send me hundreds of visitors daily for FREE.
So there are ways around them. Although I do miss getting instant traffic I was more than willing to pay for, I do enjoy stealing traffic from them a lot more. Especially since they banned me.
You all should do the same
- Jason
Sirs,
I held an account with adwords for years. OK it’s a small fry account with very little budget. It got banned in december for clickbank links on a landing page. Took a while to find that out from google.
Reading this and other forums, the story appears to be the same. Google Adwords appears to be issuing lifetime bans for people linking to or advertising clickbank products. If this were a matter of normal life or normal business, very few courts would likely uphold the principle of punishment so severe as life-long bans from advertising on the majority of the internet for the sake of trying to sell products themselves widely available on the internet and apparently legally sold and available. In fact, people committing serious crime rarely spend absolutely all their life in jail.
But this is not normal life. There are apparently few real world legal rules or controls that google adwords have to adhere to. There is not a monopolies commission that can rule on a company’s popularity. However, any company which systematically reviles its customers will eventually destroy its own customer base. Today it would appear Adwords has a problem with clickbank products. Tomorrow, it could be a different company or organisation. The point is, we the user empowers Google to do what it does because most of us are happy to use google all of the time. We cannot therefore complain that the company takes advantage of that fact and has created ways to make the relationship more beneficial to itself. The company is responsible to its shareholders and is obliged to make more and more money out of a marketplace it already saturates and dominates. Perhaps a good way to do that is to increase its advertising performance by pushing up the cost per clicks, or maybe, reducing competition. Its just an idea, but you can be sure there is a reason that most likely leads to ‘money’.
There was a time when Google appeared to build its entire adwords and adsense growth on what is known as ‘the long tail’. Meaning, huge numbers of small advertisiers. Problem is it was a flawed success story because millions of completely worthless webpages appears and huge numbers of scams emerged. All trying to take advantage of google’s Adwords and Adsense systems. The shareholders and wallstreet loved the money results and somehow even though Google is expected to try and clean up its own mess, it still has to keep getting better results. So now they seem to doing it with different deals. The long tail is not so ‘cute’ or useful and indeed small advertisers take up huge resources and cost a lot of money to regulate. So its probably far easier, cheaper, more profitable to whittle down the long tail into a shorter, more compliant, more manageable tail.
As for those of us who have been banned. There are other ways to advertise in other places. Also there are agencies who can represent your products on Adwords without a problem. Yes its hard to swallow, but at the end of the day, being part of the no longer loved long tail is not the end of the world.
Great post “Anon”.
Google is about making money. Sadly Google is now run by Wall Street not Larry or Sergey. Google has become a piranha monopoly operation. Google trims(bans) anybody actually using their platform successfully at what they deem is their expense. If you become too successful for their liking, they will send the auditors to your website. As much as one thing out of place and they ban you for life. I have had it happened to my entire adwords account and adsense on one of my websites (the one which used to make ok money).
If you are still alive with google, it is a good bet google still counts you as a pawn. The minute you hit a point where they deem you are a little too successful, look out.
I think companies like CB need to level with their partners and stop coddling Google. Stop the talk all one has to do is abide by google’s ts. That really does not matter to google. One could have one comment on an attached forum with the word “porno” and get banned, happened to me. Google could careless. They would much rather have more space for Walmart offerings than your silly CB adword ads.
and another thing…it is popular now amongst the coder community to talk about the falling quality and relevance of the Google Search Results. To these geeks the problem is spam. They assume the spammers have simply overwhelmed google and that is why one gets less than optimal results using google these days…
Nope, has absolutely nothing to do with that, IMHO. No what is happening is google directs certain queries in ways to maximize the clicking of adword ads. Studies have show close to half of people searching will just as well click an ad as they will an organic listing. If you can serve-up completely irrelevant organic results, what do you think a surfer will click on? This is why for most popular money KWs, the organic results quality is declining. This has little if anything to do with spammers and/or people “gaming” the engine. That claim is a smoke screen.
I would also submit the use of google analytic’s and other tools has enabled google and certain large ad partners the ability to avoid spending money on adsense websites sending low quality score clicks (low conversions). Course as we know many people do not buy off an initial click but may do so at a later date. Google assumes if your traffic does not convert on the click, your traffic sucks. That may or may not be true. I would submit many times the lack of relevant ads served to a website is more the issue than the quality of website user.
Interesting perspective Stephen. Are you saying Google intentionally serves irrelevant results in organic search for the sake of hoping searchers will click AdWords ads due to irrelevant organic results?
Here’s some links to more on how I arrived at my opinion. I would also say many of Google’s actions and policies toward smaller players has to do with manipulation and not some desire to be this “honest” player in cyberspace. I would submit the whole “do no evil” thing is marketing, a clever window dressing and nothing more.
http://www.benedelman.org/hardcoding/
http://www.benedelman.org/searchbias/
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/3483064.htm
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/rsstory/71859.html?wlc=1299514084