1. Create Fresh Content Every Day

Although hardly mentioned on most affiliate forums, fresh unique content is now more powerful than ever before. If you are not creating daily fresh content then you are definitely losing out!  Simply create daily quality content that funnels traffic to your sales pages.

2. Get Sticky!

Give your readers something to do! Find ways to make your pages “sticky”! Use videos, games, quizzes or even surveys to keep readers on your site.

3. Build A Brand!

Panda is killing thin type affiliate sites with each update. Don’t worry about exact type domains; build an authority site with at least 1000 pages.

4. Optimise Pages For Greater Conversions

It still amazes me how many affiliates simply “throw up” pages and then simply build links with in reality no effort made to determine how well their sales pages actually convert. Quality affiliates are constantly spilt testing their sales pages to squeeze every click possible form their pages. Changes to banners and call to actions can have a drastic effect on conversions.

5. Keep Under The Radar

on’t create links for your websites on affiliate forums. You will notice that smart affiliates never mention their main sites on affiliate forums as they don’t want their efforts dissected by those struggling to make money.

6. Time Is Money!

It’s very easy to end up wasting valuable time posting on affiliate forums and social networks. On many of the affiliate forums I read it seems that many do little else other than post all day on the forum. Remember time is money!

7. Don’t Put All Your Eggs In One Basket!

Many affiliates fall in to the trap of putting all their eggs in to the “Google Basket”. Compared to five years ago we now have many great sources to generate free traffic. Utilise YouTube and other video sites and also of course social media sites. Also don’t forget that there are many other search engines you can target. PPC campaigns can be very profitable on some of the lesser known smaller search engines.

8. Educate Yourself!

No online affiliate knows it all. Spend the time each week to read a new book to increase your knowledge. To get you started read Cashvertising by Drew Eric Whitman.

9. Get Ahead!

Talk regularly to affiliate managers and ask about forthcoming promotions. From experience I can tell you that doing so can be very profitable as you can steal a march on other affiliates.

10. Stay Focused!

At the start of each week set your goals in regards to what you want to get done and ensure that you achieve your goals each and every week!

Have You Been Pandalized?

Google issues penalties for a number of reasons so how do webmasters know if they have been Pandalized? Well there is an easy way to establish if a drop in rankings is due to a Panda. Basically, Panda updates roll out each month. If a drop in traffic coincides with one or more of the Panda Iteration dates below, then you are a victim of Panda.

Google Panda Iteration Dates

• Panda 1.0: February 24, 2011
• Panda 2.0: April 11, 2011
• Panda 2.1: May 9, 2011
• Panda 2.2: June 18, 2011
• Panda 2.3: July 22, 2011
• Panda 2.4: August 12, 2011
• Panda 2.5: September 28, 2011
• Panda 2.5.1: October 5, 2011
• Panda 2.5.2: October 13, 2011

What Is Panda?

Firstly Panda is NOT a live algorithm. Panda is actually a machine learning background job which runs firstly on what many are calling a training dataset, with results exported monthly, to the actual Google search results. We already know that Panda targets duplicate content, and indeed pages with a high percentage of ads, but in reality Panda does far more. Looking at sites that have been hit, it is clear to see that many Pandalized sites, did not contain duplicate content, a high degree of ads or even poor content. So why were these site targeted by Panda?

If we are honest, many affiliate sales pages may indeed be well written, but in reality they are of little use to readers. For example if we take typical affiliate Pokerstars review pages, many contain exactly the same info. If you read 100 such pages that how many could we actually class as quality pages?

The key of course is trying to understand how Panda classifies good and poor content. I for one have been saying for some time that bounce rate must be a key factor or at the very least a starting point. I suggest you should read the article by Peter van der Graaf entitled Panda in detail. One section of the article states:

“This means that while bounce-rate (in this case: visitors returning to search results quickly) isn’t used as a direct ranking factor, it is used to teach the Panda new tricks. Signals like bounce rate are fed as bamboo to the Panda background system with the instruction to find out what patterns can be derived from characteristics that form thin content, unnatural text and excessive on-page advertising. The system picks various combinations of attributes combined to get a high degree of certainty for someone’s spammy activities”

Also when digging a little deeper I found a research paper by the man himself responsible for Google Panda, Biswanath Panda. The document gives an insight to  Massively Parallel Learning of Tree Ensembles including examples. I found the section detailing an experiment for computational advertising very interesting.

We measure the performance of PLANET on the bounce rate prediction problem . A click on an sponsored search advertisement is called a bounce if the click is immediately followed by the user returning to the search engine.

Ads with high bounce rates are indicative of poor user experience and provide a strong signal of advertisement quality.

The training dataset (AdCorpus) for predicting bounce rates is derived from all clicks on search ads from the  data size for various numbers of machines.

Each record represents a click labelled with whether it was bounce. A wide variety of features are considered for each click. These include the search query for the click, advertiser chosen keyword, advertisement text, estimated click through rate of the ad clicked, a numeric similarity score between the ad and the landing page, and whether the advertiser keyword precisely matched the query.

So from the above we can deduce that an ad clicked with the user quickly returning to the search engine is classed as a poor quality ad. We can also deduce that an ad receiving more than expected clicks, with the user not returning to the search can be classed as a great ad. It is also interesting to note that there are other considerations taken into account which I have been testing.

How To Beat Panda?

Firstly if your site contains duplicate content, poor quality content or is heavily laden with ads, then you are at an extremely high risk of being hit by the dreaded Panda. Also if Panda is indeed mirroring the example test, published by Biswanath Panda, then if you have a high amount of pages with a high bounce rate, and by high bounce rate I’m referring to clicks from Google search pages that result in the user quickly returning to the search page. Then again you are a prime target.

It seems a no brainer to me that we all need to work harder to increase our click through rates from Google search pages and indeed work far much harder in engaging with our readers. Pages with high bounce rates should be remove or updated so that the actual bounce rate is reduced. With affiliate sales pages you simply need to go the extra mile so that more users to actual read them.

Many will read this article and state that they have sites with high bounce rates that have yet to been hit. How can I explain this fact? Well remember in real terms Panda is still in its infancy. With each update it learns more and more, with the effect of hitting more and more sites. Also of prime importance is the relevance of links in regards to Panda. Many have suggested that the quality of a site’s backlinks profile can indeed raise the threshold, for now at least, in regards to being hit by Panda. At the same time though it must be stated that more and more types of backlinks are being discounted by Google, which explains why the last Panda update, left many sites with reduced rankings of 10 to 20 places. Perhaps the last Panda update simply also contained another algo tweak that did indeed discount specific types of backlinks?

The trouble is that during the course of this year Google has changed so much! Many suggest that Google has also given more “power” to authority & brand type sites in the form of a Vince 2.0 update, which does indeed seem credible. Most webmaster for the last few months seem to be blinded by Panda so all algo tweaks are quickly classed as part of Panda which is simply not true.

Recovering From Panda

The good news for those that have been “battered” by Panda is that you can indeed recover. To date I have managed to get 2 sites back from the dead, with a third site well on its way, or at least I hope so.

The third site was hit by Panda 1.0 and was hit extremely hard losing most of its 100 daily uniques from Google as you can see below.

My tactics for recovering from Panda are as follows:

• Remove any duplicate content without any redirects. Use online tools such as Copyscape to check ALL pages.
• Report any scapper sites that may have copying your sites content. Use this form.
• Remove thin content pages or beef them up.
• Remove pages with a high SERP bounce rate or improve the SERP bounce rate.
• Add more quality pages to your site.

Also of great importance is the fact that many have also stated that once a site has been Pandalized, simply removing low quality pages has not been enough to get the site ranking again. If you look at the analytics above, you can see the site above did recover although was quickly Pandalized again. I believe it is simply not enough, in most cases, to simply remove low quality content. You have to raise the overall quality of your site once you have been hit.

The Future of Panda

As I have already said, Panda is just in its infancy. The days of simply buying Google rankings with links, will I believe, within the next year, be gone forever. Google has been flawed for some time with links having an excessive amount of power in the Google algo. The truth is many sites with quality white hat links have already been hit by Panda. Although many affiliates do not want to believe it, the game has indeed changed!

If you have read the Google Search Quality Rating Guidelines, then you will have noticed time and time again, as in other Google documents, the term “authoritive site” is used. Many have been saying for some time, myself included, that authority sites have far more power to rank in Google and indeed in other search engines. How though does Google define authority type sites? What metrics does Google use?

What are your thoughts on the metrics used by Google to class some sites as authority type sites?

Maybe some of the following are used?

• Number of pages of a set value (useful and perhaps vital pages)
• Brand (site name) type in traffic
• New pages added each day or week
• Low bounce rate
• High CTR
• High time spent on site

Google must use metrics to define when a site in effect becomes an authority type site. What are your thoughts?

The Vital rating is used for these very special situations:

1) The dominant interpretation of the query is navigation, and the landing page is the target of the navigation query.

2) The dominant interpretation of the query is an entity (such as a person, place, business, restaurant, product, company, organization, etc.), and the landing page is the official webpage associated with that entity.

Can we though as affiliates create authority type sites that in turn create their own vital queries? And if so, create vital pages for our sites?  If we take an honest look at affiliate sites then is it very clear that very few look like official businesses or indeed organisations. I strongly believe that affiliates should now forget about “thin” type affiliate sites, although I will discuss this in later posts, and instead create big authority type sites, with a quality brand image.

Look at the big brand type sites that seem to be dominating the major gambling search queries. These sites are indeed big authority type sites that we can class as businesses and indeed organisations.  What do you think would be better for profit in the current Google climate? A network of let’s say of 20 thin type sites or just a single site with a good business brand image? I will be honest and say I have seen the benefits of building such sites although I do realise many affiliates prefer the easier option. We all know the value of links on vital pages or bloody should do by now! We also know the value of links on lesser authority sites. Remember I have been saying for some time that authority type sites are ranking for popular search queries from just internal links alone? There is no doubt in my mind that big brand type sites have more power than ever before, so affiliates should adapt rather than wasting their time on throwing thousands of links at thing type affiliate sites.

Moving on from vital pages and search queries, let’s take a look at what Google describes as “useful pages” the next highest ranked pages.

Google states:

A rating of Useful is assigned to pages that are very helpful for most users. Useful pages should be high quality and a good “fit” for the query. In addition, they often have some or all of the following characteristics: highly satisfying, authoritative, entertaining, and/or recent (such as breaking news on a topic).

Useful pages are usually well organized and pages you trust. They are from information sources that seem reliable. Useful information pages are not “spammy”.

In my next post I’m going to discuss “useful pages” in far more detail, but for now let’s pick out important aspects of Google’s statement, in regards to this classification. Most affiliates create sites then sit back and simply build links. Let’s be honest, many gambling affiliates have not updated their sales pages / site review pages for months or even years in some cases. Most gambling site reviews are basically the same with very few affiliates “going the extra mile” to update their pages with the latest news relating to the promoted site, with many being sadly out of date. Most site review pages are far from authoritive with many crammed with sign up links. I know from just referring to Google’s classification of “useful pages” that most affiliates could make their sales pages far better. Now is the time to do so!

URL Rating Overview

Google Test Team members were simply given a number of search queries and told to do the following:

• Research The Query
• Click on the URL to visit the landing page
• Assign a rating based on guidelines detailed in the document

Depending on the quality of the pages viewed, members of the test team were told to score the pages as:

• Vital
• Useful
• Relevant
• Slightly Relevant
• Off Topic or Useless
• Unratable

For each of the above ratings, the team members were given a detailed description, so let’s take a look at how each score was defined as per the Google document.

The Vital rating is used for these very special situations:

1) The dominant interpretation of the query is navigation, and the landing page is the target of the navigation query.

2) The dominant interpretation of the query is an entity (such as a person, place, business, restaurant, product, company, organization, etc.), and the landing page is the official webpage associated with that entity.

To help the Test Team Google gives examples of “vital” queries such as:

Nytimes – The home page of the New York Times

We can of course say the likes of a query such as BBC would also be a vital query as would Yahoo and Amazon.

All such sites that should respond to vital queries are of course authority type sites, the best of the best authority type sites.

It must be noted that Google states in the document that…

Social networking pages for companies are NOT considered Vital.

Google does also state that…

Homepages, blogs, and social networking pages have become very popular, and many famous and non-famous people now have multiple “official” personal pages on the Web. People may have multiple homepages, multiple blogs, and multiple pages on various social networking sites, such as MySpace, Facebook, Friendster, Mixi, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, etc. Official homepages of all types are Vital for famous people (and for non-famous people who have unusual, uniquely identifiable names).

Social networking pages for small groups of people (such as social clubs or musical bands) are also considered Vital.

Social networking pages for companies are NOT considered Vital.

It can sometimes be difficult to determine if a homepage, blog, or social networking page is official. Usually, official webpages for famous people are “professional” in appearance and are often linked to from the individual’s other official pages or from a Wikipedia article about the person. Please use your judgment and have high standards.

So from the above YouTube pages for the likes of let’s say Lady Ga Ga and Greenday for example can be classed as Vital, although a YouTube page for a company can’t be classed as vital. It is interesting to note that even Ford’s official Facebook page is not classed as vital.

Google goes on to state that most queries will not have Vital webpages. The document defines this by stating:

• The query does not have a dominant interpretation.
• The query is not an entity or is not a navigation query.
• No official website or webpage exists for the entity.
• No person or entity can “own” the topic of the query.

The document aids the Test Team by listing search queries that can’t be classed as vital. Examples include the likes of knitting, ipod reviews and diabetes.

Also of note is the fact that the document states that of course some search queries have multiple vital pages.

Google also goes on to state that there are more than one form of vital query. The Test Team were asked to define the vital query as either:

• Appropriate Vital
• International Vital
• Other Vital

In the next article we will move on to search queries that Google asked their Test Team to score as useful. These are of course of prime importance to affiliates.

I have read the full document and indeed downloaded it.  It seems to contain some real gems in regards to what quality metrics are been implemented for the new PANDA algorithm updates. I plan to write a detail summary of the document in the next couple for days, although for those who can’t wait here is a brief summary.

As many have already stated, quality does indeed play a major role in regards to ranking highly in Google SERPs. The Google’s Search Quality Team, were in effect asked to determine how relevant the content of pages were to the search key phrases. Each page was given a score, depending on the type of query, which in effect stated if the content was reverent to the key phrase.

This is a direct quote from the document.

For each URL rating task you acquire, you will see a query and a URL. You will:

• Research the query
• Click on the URL to visit the landing page
• Assign a rating based on this guidelines

Perhaps surprisingly, social network profiles, it seems, are not as important as many had suggested although at this early stage of digesting the document, it seems they are an important factor for music acts and possible organised groups.

It seems “thin type” affiliate sites, especially those with pages that contained a large amount of ad space were to be classed as low quality.

Are we going to see a future Google PANDA update that targets exact match domains? Well the document states that “raters” should not assume exact match domains to be an authority in regards to the search phrase. Perhaps, and at this point I’m just guessing, then if many exact match type websites did score low with the “raters” then a future PANDA update could target them.

Although the document is now in the public domain, we don’t of course know how Google has implemented the data gathered. It is clear though that Google has taken an in-depth look at their search results and must have somehow matched CTR and other metrics to the manual research gathered.

It seems clear to me that links are now far less important and we need to understand how to make the Google algorithm score our pages as highly useful and indeed, as researches were asked to score “vital” for some specific search queries.

Expect an in-depth review in the next 48 hours.

As I have posted on affiliate and webmaster forums, and indeed here at Gambling Cash Cow, I strongly believe that within a year, most type of backlinks will be worthless. The days of building mini sites, then simply acquiring links and sitting back and waiting for rankings to improve, by next year will be gone forever.

I have experienced some of my lesser sites lose rankings after the latest PANDA update. One site in particular has experienced a degradation of it’s ranking, by 10 to 15 places for all key phrases. To be honest this site had been ranking with many low quality backlinks which I believe now are of no value, hence the loss of rankings.

Also of note it that my big brand authority sites have received improved rankings with NO increase in backlinks.  You can see from the Google Analytics graph below, that the latest Google PANDA update has seen search traffic increase substantially.

Brand Value

To me it seems clear that “brand value” is more important than ever before, although many affiliate webmasters choose to ignore this fact. With the latest update it seems clear that many who aim to continue as affiliates will have to make major changes to their strategy.  Forget about networks of “thin” type affiliate sites and instead build perhaps a single authority site, although I’m sure this task will be too daunting for many. Many will simply refer to existing sites that currently still maintain their rankings, although I expect many more sites to be hit over the next year.

In reality we affiliates have had it easy over the last few years. In reality those with the knowledge to acquire the right sort of links, could easily rank any site. I will be honest and say that in the past I have even launched ultra-thin affiliate sites, than have done the job of boosting my bank account.

What Is Brand Value?

There is no doubt that “brand value” does indeed exist in the Google algorithm. I have witnessed many big authority brand type sites, some of my sites included, achieving quality rankings, simply with internal links. I have not found an exact definition of how to achieve brand value in the eyes of Google although to create it I would suggest the following:

Number of Pages

I strongly believe that when a site contains, let’s say 1000 quality pages, and by quality I’m referring to content that matches the actual search phrase(s), doesn’t send readers back to Google search results for more info, pages that don’t have a high bounce rate and of course encourage users to view other pages of the site, then such a site earns great trust with Google. How many pages you actually need to be classed an authority site is indeed highly debatable.

Unique Brand Key Phrases

Of course there are other factors involved to be classed as an authority site in my opinion. For example I also believe that generating unique brand type key phrases also is a major factor. For example if a recipe site packed with every day recipes, let’s call it  tonysrecipes dot com ( I do hope that site does not exist), was generating daily search queries such as “Tony’s Omelette Recipe”, Tony’s Curry Recipe”, I strongly believe this sends a great signal to Google in regards to the quality of your site and of course builds brand value. Of course achieving this is not easy, but those that do ending generating a vast amount of traffic from their own brand key phrases.

Brand Image

I also believe that brand image is very important. I for one have noticed that co-branding program sign up pages, vastly increases sign ups. Of course having my site’s logo displayed on a major operators sign up page, also helps to build trust with my readers. I know that my readers can identify my brand type sites from just the main brand logo alone.

Of course there are many more factors that have to be taken in to consideration in regards to building a brand type authority site. Building such a site will also require a vast amount of time and effort, but those that do will be the ones who succeed in the long term.

Build a Brand

Yes I know I have stated this fact time and time again, but I strongly believe that brand type sites now have more power than ever before. I also believe that in the years ahead, big quality brand sites will gain even more power from search engines.

If I was starting out as a new gambling affiliate today, I would not bother about finding an exact match domain, I would be happy to start with an aged domain that I could brand. The reason I would opt for an aged domain, is simply because using sites such as Godaddy Auctions, you can acquire aged domains, that even in some cases have quality back links, for as little as ten bucks. Of course, you have to be careful that the domain you decide to purchase does not have any penalty or indeed has spam back links, but in most cases you just need to use a little common sense.

Most affiliates end up with a network of thin exact match affiliate sites, of which many have been hit by PANDA or other Google algorithm changes in the past year or so. From experience, I can tell you that if you build a quality brand type site with 1000+ pages, you will rank for a stream of hundreds of long tail key phrases, plus you find it easier to rank for competitive key phrases just from your own internal links.

Adding just three pages of quality content a day, will result in over 1000 pages during the course of a year.

Monitor Every Click

Our goal as affiliates is to generate clicks, which in turn generate sign ups, which in turn generate real money players. Yes it is as simple as that! I’m amazed that many affiliates don’t even know which of their pages get the most clicks! Furthermore, most defiantly have no idea in regards to pages with multiple affiliate links, which links are generating the most clicks.

In my opinion the name of the game is to simply find out which links and anchors produce the most clicks, plus of course, which links and anchors produce less clicks. Once you have this information then you can add more of the type of links and call to actions that get more clicks, and remove the type of links and call to actions that get fewer clicks. Basic affiliate marketing in my opinion, but in reality how many affiliate actually has this data and act upon it?

Many affiliate sites have in effect wasted clicks, which in effect are just like throwing money down the drain. Watch out for my next article which will cover this topic in far more detail.

Get a Better Deal

The rates offered to affiliates on operators affiliate pages are simply rates offered to everyone. The way I see it is that if you are an established affiliate, why should you get the same rate as someone just starting out, with perhaps no idea of what they are doing? For new affiliates I would strongly advise to push most of your traffic to one of two operators only during your first few months.  If you are generating let’s say £500 a month, it is a fact that you are in a better bargaining position if all the revenue is at one program, rather than have the revenue split between several programs.

Most affiliate managers will be happy to strike an increased deal for new affiliates with revenue as little as £500 a month or in some cases even less. Once you have an approved deal you can in effect contact other affiliate managers, telling them that you already have an improved deal with another operator, and you would be happy to promote their product if they would match it or even better it.

If you are an established affiliate and still on basic rates, then your next job should be to contact your affiliate manager and tell them you want a better deal. If they will not offer you a better deal, although most will, start looking at other programs.

Add New Content Every Day

Many affiliates start new sites full of enthusiasm to build the best site in the niche. Most though lose interest after a few months moving on to other projects. I would guess that many affiliates reading this article have sites that they have not updated for months or even years. Am I right?

Google loves sites that are constantly updated, plus furthermore, many who use Google now utilise the extra Google search options that show new content from the last hour, past 24 hours and past week. It is a fact that you can rank for competitive search terms including the likes of online poker and online casino through these search options. The key is simply to create fresh content that targets these key phrases on a regular basis.

Explore Different Demographics

As a UK affiliate I will be honest and say the UK gambling niches are now extremely saturated. I have been in this game long enough to remember that back in the day, even a crappy website would generate a healthy stream of sign ups. Those days have now gone! The good news is that there are new markets opening up all around the world. Again from experience I will tell you that these new markets are very profitable and extremely competitive.

When you start making money, invest in translating your site into different languages. Yes I know this can prove to be expensive, and to say the least awkward, but doing so will prove to be very profitable. Of course most affiliates don’t bother because of the expense involved and the hassle of doing so. You can use the Google External Keyword Tool to seek out key phrases plus there are many other quality key phrase tools you can use.

So there you have it, my top tips for new gambling affiliates. Stick firmly to the above and I can virtually guarantee you will make money!

I have not tried to utilise the flaw but it seems many have. It also it not too difficult to impletement as you can see below.

https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/removals-request?hl=en&siteUrl=http://{YOUR_URL}/&urlt={URL_TO_BLOCK}

There is though documented evidence online that indeed the flaw can be exploited and you can actually remove any url of your choice.

David Naylor, a highly respected UK SEO expert documented the flaw on his blog. You can read more about the flaw in his recent post on the matter. Google Webmasters Flaw Allows You To Remove Any URL From Their Index.

Google Page Rank Fix

Just a couple of weeks after the first page rank update for 6 months, Google issued another page rank export which resulted in many webmasters reported page rank of their sites rolling back to previous levels. I can report this was not a roll back but an adjustment.

Google recently issued a statement…..

Recently Twitter has been making various changes to its robots.txt file and HTTP status codes. These changes temporarily resulted in unusual url canonicalization for Twitter by our algorithms. The canonical urls have started to settle down, and we’ve pushed a refresh of the toolbar PageRank data that reflects that. Twitter continues to have high PageRank in Google’s index, and this variation was not a penalty.

“This highlights why the government is looking at reforming how overseas-based operators are regulated and we hope to make an announcement in the next few weeks,” a spokesman for the Department for Culture, Media & Sport said.

Many of the leading UK gambling operators have set up companies offshore so they can in effect vastly reduce their tax liabilities. The cash strapped UK government has been keeping an eye on the likes of Italy in regards to the reform of online gambling in the UK. Many predict that Italy will raise 1 billion Euros in the next year from online gambling taxation whilst the UK will only raise a small fraction of that amount due to liberal online gambling laws. The UK looks set to follow Italy, with operators who accept UK players set to be hit with hefty taxation.

The bad news for affiliates is that in other countries that have licensed and taxed online gambling operators, affiliates have had their rev share deals slashed as operators have had to pay a larger proportion of their turnover in tax. It looks likes the days of 40% commission from UK facing online gambling operators will be vanished to the vaults of history.