If I understand correctly, this appears to be a continuation of the growing disparity between the little guy and Big Corp. The article talks a lot about publishers relying on affiliate links, but there are also many bloggers, YouTube channels, podcasters, etc., who have been making use of affiliate links. Will Google be "bypassing"(for lack of a better word) those peoples' affiliate marketing as well by placing their own links for those same products at the forefront?
Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
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Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#12We’re moving from a world where we actively search to a word where “the best” is recommended to us.
Google will continue to build out lines of business that make sense in a post search world (hardware, shopping platform, ....?)
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
AMP-shopping is next
Is the Amazon’s one-click shopping patent still valid? Google could add a ”Buy now” button there, handling customer shipping data and payment and just forward the order to merchant that serves customer’s location. For smaller vendors it might be interesting to replace AdWords with the possibility to list stuff for sale. Instead of click price, you would tell how big cut of price you give to Google if customer makes t…
Amazon's one-click shopping patent expired on Sept 11, 2017:
https://qz.com/1057490/a-patent-that-helped-amazon-take-over...
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#14Slightly related but I recently saw more spammy "product review blogs" (that just list products with very short description and affiliate Amazon links) in top 10 google results. I wonder if that is related.
It's certainly not just Google. Same thing in Germany on DuckDuckGo.
The last time I had checked current reviews (though that was for tech products, now for DIY home improvement), I got researched lists with information – and happily clicked on the amazon.de affiliate link.
Now? I checked 20 sites that literally all had the same content because it was nothing but the highlights extracted from the Amazon product page. Utterly useless.
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#15If I understand correctly, this appears to be a continuation of the growing disparity between the little guy and Big Corp. The article talks a lot about publishers relying on affiliate links, but there are also many bloggers, YouTube channels, podcasters, etc., who have been making use of affiliate links. Will Google be "bypassing"(for lack of a better word) those peoples' affiliate marketing as well by placing their…
The small sites have already lost most of their traffic for products to the large publishers which Google favors.
Question is how this will work with the courts. There's already a law suit in Germany brought by a large price comparison site against Google, suing for 500m because Google pushes their own "Google Shopping" results in SERPs, claiming they are abusing their monopoly.
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#16Unless Google does something about Amazon Prime, good luck with that. Not having to pay for shipping on a case by case basis is the ultimate killer app for online purchases.
Additionally, buying on Amazon has a lot more safety than buying on some random shop that paid Google to be listed. A-Z guarantee is peace of mind.
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#17Slightly related but I recently saw more spammy "product review blogs" (that just list products with very short description and affiliate Amazon links) in top 10 google results. I wonder if that is related.
It's certainly not just Google. Same thing in Germany on DuckDuckGo. The last time I had checked current reviews (though that was for tech products, now for DIY home improvement), I got researched lists with information – and happily clicked on the amazon.de affiliate link. Now? I checked 20 sites that literally all had the same content because it was nothing but the highlights extracted from the Amazon product page.…
> I got researched lists with information – and happily clicked on the amazon.de affiliate link
Don't rely on those too much, I've had some business with the publishers of those sites, and they are very low quality and basically just push the products that sell well, not the best ones. It's a scam, which is also why they usually won't say that they did a "test" (instead it's just a "comparison"), because that would hold them to higher standards and they'd catch too much flak.
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#18Unless Google does something about Amazon Prime, good luck with that. Not having to pay for shipping on a case by case basis is the ultimate killer app for online purchases.
Not to mention that people wont blink at paying Amazon hundreds of dollars a year for services, but make memes on the Internet about paying for YouTube Red.
I think it's indicative of a larger problem in society: people don't value bytes of video and will penny pinch to the extreme in that department, but they'll gladly drop any amount on Amazon shipping.
After all, why should they? The entertainment industry has acted atrociously to consumers in recent decades - it's just a shame that independent content creators are being stifled (declining ad revenue, refusal to pay, etc..) by the behaviour of megacorps.
Re: Google may be about to kill affiliate marketing links
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not to mention that people wont blink at paying Amazon hundreds of dollars a year for services, but make memes on the Internet about paying for YouTube Red.
I think it's indicative of a larger problem in society: people don't value bytes of video and will penny pinch to the extreme in that department, but they'll gladly drop any amount on Amazon shipping. After all, why should they? The entertainment industry has acted atrociously to consumers in recent decades - it's just a shame that independent content creators are being stifled (declining ad revenue, refusal to pay,…
I disagree. I think it's indicative that people don't trust Google to provide value.