Affiliate Content, Duplicate Content And The Crucial Differences Between Them; Er, There Are None...
Going by word on the Search Engine news group, alt.internet.search-engines, it's looking like Google is getting better at spotting and demoting affiliate content. It could well be that because the same text content is repeated over and over on
every affiliate site that carries it it gets demoted by Google purely for being duplicate content. I see this as being a problem, a growing problem, for every affiliate merchant and client using a data feed to power the pages. While the templates folk use may well vary in detail due to individuals customising them to their taste, essentially they're all variants on the same theme and of course they all contain the same few lines of text content in the same order.
Repetition of this kind shouldn't be too hard to identify and either ignore or remove from the listings or do whatever with which may well mean in the future that the idea of affiliate sites as we now have them is simply no longer practical.
My crystal gifts site is powered by a feed from GoCollect.com using a Cusimano script. I've personalised the templates so if you know me you'll recognise the standard BB layout of the individual product pages. Visually, therefore, it isn't like any of the other sites using the same feed. It still has the same text content, though. Inputting a sample into Google produces "about 584" results, all of which, or the majority of which we must suspect as I'm not going to go through them all to check it absolutely, are built around the same feed. The problem here for both affiliates and for affiliate merchants and for Google is, what's the point in having them at all? If there's one site that has them,
namely, the original, where's the point in Google having the rest of them in the index? They all sell the same product for the same price, so why bother to index them? At the moment, it's the battle of the SEO's. Why should someone buy product A from my site as opposed to anyone else's? The answer would be, because when they search for product they find my site before they find any of the others, and there are ways of promoting sites with which we are all familiar here. But this can't really last. The world only really needs just the one web site for these custom-made products and speciality items, and that's the one from the original manufacturers. All the rest essentially constitute duplicate content and we know what happens to that, it gets filtered out.
So, to counter this problem, you could substitute your own text for the original, and you could take your own photographs of the product. Not a problem for a small site, however, many have tens of thousands of pages. How is anyone going to re-write that lot? Obviously any lone affiliate can't begin to, so the idea of affiliate sites as we now have them, I think, must inevitably give way to niche sites where the affiliate presents a small range of items in an individual style that will appeal to certain of the buying public. The idea would be to create a brand of presentation that clients would get to be familiar with and feel comfortable with. If you look at the items on my crystal gifts site they're all photographed out of context. In your home they are unlikely to be suspended in mid-air against a white background, which is how they're presented in the data feed and thus on my site. I'm suggesting taking pictures of items as they might actually appear in situ, do a little mock-up of a down-lit corner table and snap that from a typical viewing angle, or have an item on a coffee-table against a background of muted lights, featuring an expansive sofa, giving a feel of general relaxed easy-living. This, by comparison with simply outputting the existing data from the feed, would cost a bundle, but it just might might be the only real way forward for niche affiliates. You know what that would result in? Quality sites. The kind Google professes to like.
Meanwhile, though, I suspect people who've built one multiple-product affiliate site, and seen it do well and are now busily engaged in building more and more multiple-product sites on the basis that they'll all do well too, are in for multiple disappointments. I'm trying to go niche in general with my affiliate sites and I've picked on crystal and glass gift items to work with as I can break then down into categories and maximise the potential of each category. What I've got then, in effect, is a legion of niche sites all interconnecting.
For choice, now that I understand more of the industry than I did when I began with affiliate sites, I'd really like a site that does watches and jewellery, these are the items that people are happiest buying from the web, research has
suggested, but I don't know a good feed other than Amazon and I've stayed away from getting too involved with Amazon as it has the high profile it does and will inevitably attract the greatest number of affiliates and so likely will be penalised in the earlier days of any affiliate purge. From what I'm hearing, this purge has already begun.
"Big" Bill Kruse operates the Posters, Crystal & Glass and SEO sites.
I, robot: How do search engine spiders and robots work?
Some internet surfers still hold on to the mistaken belief that actual people visit each and every website and then input it for inclusion in the search engine's database. Imagine, if these were true! With billions of websites available on the internet and with a majority of these sites offering fresh content it will take thousands of people to achieve the tasks made by search engine spiders and robots – and even then they won't be as efficient or as thorough.
Search engine spiders and robots are pieces of code or software that have only one aim – seek content on the internet and within each and every individual web page out there. These tools have a very important role in how effectively search engines operate.
Search engine spiders and robots visit websites and get the necessary information that it needs to determine the nature and content of the website and then adds the data to the search engine's index. Search engine spiders and robots follow links from one website to another so that it can consistently and infinitely gather the necessary information. The ultimate goal of search engine spiders and robots is to compile a comprehensive and valuable database that can deliver the most relevant results to the search queries of visitors.
But how exactly do search engine spiders and robots work?
The whole process begins when a web page is sent to a search engine for submission. The submitted URL is added to the queue of websites that will be visited by the search engine spider. Submissions can be optional though because most spiders will be able to find the content in a web page if other websites link to the page. This is the reason why it is a good idea to build reciprocal links with other website. By enhancing the link popularity of your website and getting links from other sites that have the same topic as your website.
When the search engine spider robot visits the website, it checks if there is an existing robots.txt file. The file tells the robot which areas of the site are off limits to its probe – like certain directories that have no use for search engines. All search engine bots look for this text file so it is a good idea to put one even if it is blank.
The robots list and store all of the links found on a page and they follow each link to its destination website or page.
The robots then submit all of this information to the search engine, which in turn compiles the data received from all the bots and builds the search engine database. This part of the process already has the intervention of search engine engineers who write the algorithms employed in evaluating and scoring the information that the search engine bots compiled. The moment all of the information is added to the search engine database this information is already made available to search engine visitors who are making search queries in the search engine.
XML-Sitemaps.com offers a free online sitemap generator that creates Google Sitemaps, Text Sitemaps for Yahoo and HTML Sitemaps to help spiders index your site more thoroughly.
3 ways to build links to your website at a rapid pace
Search engines have changed a lot since they have been in existence. They rapidly change how they rank websites. It used to be a matter of which websites had the most reciprocal links. Now that is of less importance due to the fact that people began to exchange links with each and every website they could find. Now it is being said that link popularity is a big factor that determines where your website is ranked for your respective keywords. Due to that fact, everyone is attempting to build links to increase their popularity. Below are 3 tips that will aid you in increasing your link popularity and eventually your rank in search engines.
1. Post in numerous forums with a link in your signature that points to your website. Search engines will pick up on these links and count them towards your inbound link count.
2. Write articles and submit them to article directories. This will not only allow you to increase your number of inbound links but it will also allow you to drive targeted visitors to your website.
3. Send out press releases. Sending out press releases increases inbound links and can also lead to articles or others types of publicity if the media is interested in your story.
The 3 tips above can go a long way towards increasing the number of links pointing to your website and increasing you search engine rank.
Andre Bias is the owner of http://www.kidfriendlyentertainment.com, and online source for top notch DVD's for children 10 years old and younger. He is also the owner of the websites http://www.pokergreed.com and http://www.mustseeauctions.com.
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