The affiliate landscape continues to shift and staying ahead is becoming increasingly difficult. So what of ‘Affiliates 2.0’? INTERGAMINGi takes a look.
FOR any business engaged in online sports betting, the football World Cup should be a beano like no other.
Predictions – with scant statistical foundation, for the most part – assert that more than a billion pounds will be wagered on Brazil 2014. In the build up to the tournament, a sense emerged that this could be the moment that the operators finally muscled out many of the affiliates.
Slowly but surely the influence of affiliates is being eroded. The SEO “cheats” and the link-chasers have been found out, for the most part, by Google’s various, often demonised, updates. Google now seeks to reward users with an improved experience that delivers authentic organic search results and connects searchers with the sites and service providers they seek. In short, results of genuine value that are more than a simple click-through to the ultimate destination.
The Penguin update targeted backlink profiles and search engine results page (SERP) manipulation, such as the over optimisation of anchor text, while Panda zeroed in on page content and text, weeding out low-quality, cloaked or duplicate content.
So is link building dead? It has certainly changed. Google rankings are built with links to organic content from third-party sites. Links that effectively vouch for your content as authentic, as honest. This can be done effectively with embedded video or images, or with campaigns that reach out, such as white papers and discussion pieces.
Of course, readable, linkable quality content needs content producers – writers, photographers, designers – and something of a back-to-basics approach. For the big operators, generating links organically can be easy as these companies are in the news or are news themselves.
Additionally, affiliates with authentic content still get caught in the Google net. The help, such that there is any from the search giant, centres on the bigger organisations. The Vince update was a white-listing mechanism intended to ring-fence big brands that were getting caught up in Google’s filters and being excluded from top results positions despite authentic, organic content.
Read the full article in the latest issue of iNTERGAMINGi
