Most people missed the irony in my earlier post…… you know, about copying text and sticking an affiliate link on it……
If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam
In BOTH leaked quality rater guidelines we’ve seen for Google quality raters – as leaked and then pulled by Search Engine Land (if you didn’t get a copy – maybe you should be subscribed :) ) – this statement is pretty standout – and should be a heads up to any webmaster out there who thinks they are going to make a fast buck from Google organic listings these days.
It should at least make you think about the types of pages you are going to spend your valuable time making.
If you are making a page today with the sole purpose of making money from it – and especially with free traffic from Google – you obviously didn’t get the memo. I talked about this sort of thing a long time ago in a Google sandbox article.
Big sites with marketing clout can sidestep this of course – so a lot of small sites trying to make some cash get hit. That might be unfair – but at least we know what field we are playing on – even if we don’t quite know what the ‘rules’ are.
It is worth remembering that your site MAY VERY WELL have to pass a manual review at some time – so just, as i also mentioned last year, getting to the top of Google isn’t enough.
Consider this from a manual reviewer:
…when they DO get to the top, they have to be reviewed with a human eye in order to make sure the site has quality. potpiegirl
It’s worth remembering:
- If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam
- If A Site Exists Only To Make Money, The Site Is Spam
This is how what you make will be judged – wether it is fair or not. I guess that makes a lot of us little guys spammers – wether we think we are, or not! If you are building a page that is already classed as spam by search engines, does that mean you may as well SPAM the search engines silly? I mean – you are already a spammer, anyways? Mixed messages – but TBH it is for this very reason I do not promote pure-affiliate sites for anybody else – so there is no point contacting me to do so.
IS IT ALL BAD NEWS?
Of course not – in some cases – it actually levels the playing field. I certainly don’t want to be a spammer.
If you come at a website thinking it is going to be a load of work and passion, thinking:
- DIFFERENTIATE YOURSELF
- BE REMARKABLE
- BE ACCESSIBLE
- ADD UNIQUE CONTENT TO YOUR SITE
- GET CREDITED AS THE SOURCE OF UNIQUE CONTENT
- HELP USERS (!) IN A WAY THAT IS NOT DONE BY 100 OTHER SITES
…. then you might actually find you’ve built a pretty good site and even – a brand.
Google doesn’t care about us seo or websites – but it DOES care about HELPING USERS. So, if you are actually helping your visitors – and not by just getting them to another website – you are probably doing one thing right at least.
With this in mind – I am already building affiliate sites differently.
In that case I made about 50.000 spammpages over about 40 domains. I run (a) webshop(s) and it’s / their sole purpuse is to make money of it…. Let’s be fair about this if the upper were true. Apple.com is spam. Even google itself is spam. They have lots of advertising on their pages with the sole purpose to make lots of money on it. It’s a good thing it doesn’t quite work like that (black and white) or we would only have websites on kittens and sports on the web.
Hello Shaun, Just some random, unordered thoughts in the aftermath of the leaked raters’ guide lines “If A Page Exists Only To Make Money, The Page Is Spam” – what about Google’s intentions behind Adwords? Double standards? Say I have a dozen pages or more making up my site and each one, bar one, has good content for the user and that the each page on the site is fully optimized for search engines. If the different page is aimed purely at getting people to use their credit cards, is the whole site then considered spam if it gets into the top search listings? Or is it just that one page that might get a kicking from a rater? What then happens to the position of the other pages in the site – is this the music for the Google dance I often read about? PotPieGirl also questions why Google doesn’t want the guidelines to be generally available if it’s purpose is to improve the quality of sites for the benefit of users. If all publishers of sites try to attain the standards listed in the guidelines is that not a good thing? Or am I missing something here? But does Google really want publishers to know their requirements – divide and conquer and make the user the product maybe? Coincident to reading about these guidelines, I saw a Matt Cutts You Tube video just on this very subject. Unfortunately, he spoke mostly in jargon about generalities without referring to the particulars on how you should avoid penalties from Google. He mentioned something about “adjusting your site content” without saying how you know just what piece of content offended the rater. I’m not sure how you can improve your site to Google’s standard without knowing exactly what those standards are. If I got it right, he then went on to say that if you offended an algorithm you were stuffed anyway and had to serve your sentence without parole. As I’ve been fumbling around now for some months trying to discover how to grind out a living of sorts online, I’m both a user and a publisher (latter terms sounds grand) As a user, I make use of Google and other search engines for both information and to buy things. Personally, apart from research into IM, I probably use the internet mostly for purchases. I’m not deep into social media. For some kinds of products, and I guess I’m not alone in this, I go online often only to check the best deals after I’ve done some research by foot slogging around the retail parks. This usually depends on the products I’m after. For example, my wife and I spend some time last weekend visiting shops to look at scooters for our grandsons. I then went online when I got home to see if I could better the prices we found. Given all that, I can see anything wrong with affiliate sites if they’re easy to use and have access to the best deals. When I visit a site buy I don’t want education or some whimsical blogger philosophy – I just want to save as much money as I can. I can’t understand Google’s apparent dislike for people making money.Sales are the driving force behind any successful business entity. Within reasonable and legal standards you do what you must to survive in business – just like Google’s founders making the case of their first server from Lego bricks if you can believe that. But then again I guess that’s why you suggest that Google’s stance is unfair. It’s okay for them to make all the money in the world. Sorry for going on a bit. Cheers, John
“If A Site Exists Only To Make Money, The Site Is Spam”, so Google.com is spam eh? I wonder if you are being a tad epigramatic? Does this really mean that a spam website offers little or no value to a visitor? No unique content? It’s difficult drawing conclusions from the Raters handbook – like the Bible, people with different views can draw from different sections and reach opposite contradictory conclusions. “Not all affiliates are thin affiliates”. Not sure here whether Google is looking at my blog or my waistline!
I’m sorry, but are the gods of google going to take down 99% of web pages now? Surely, the motive of most people that post on the internet is to make a few shillings… what about ecommerce type sites? Are we all spammers now. Jeez, this is getting totally rediculous – who do they think they are.. got to go away now and take a valium :)
If you can treat your page rank high and low as the impostors that they are and concentrate your efforts on your blog then you’ll be a man, my son – never fear. (from Rudyard Kipling – who would doubtless have included page rank in his poem had he lived in modern times)
I think it’s important to not over think this. Let’s not miss the important word “Only” in “If A Page Exists ONLY To Make Money, The Page Is Spam” Most everyone wants to make money of their web pages, but you can do that ALONG with helping someone solve a problem with a quality product. Just because it costs money to buy the solution to that problem does not make it spam. I (try to) sell stock images on my site to earn income, but I am also providing SOLUTIONS for people who need these images for their projects. The cited line seems vague like every other rule Google has, and it’s up to interpretation and judgment of the enforcer. Like everything else.
Hello Shaun thanks for your nice post. Every one want to make money from their business page, I think so.
I agree with Brad, as we can only speculate as to what Google really means. We can only interpret it for ourselves.
Websites exist either to inform or make money. Yes some people have websites up that they built for fun but those are a minority.