11th June 2008

Google’s Untapped Gold Mine

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Today I am going to illustrate how Google hasn’t yet monetised their organic listings to their full potential, a Gold Mine, it’s something we have been utilising for a few years on our own small dummy search engines with moderate success & if scaled up will be relatively successful for any affiliate … for Google this would be immense.

When you conduct a search on Google you are presented with natural / organic listings & sponsored listings.

Say a potential customer was looking for a merchant, lets use Marks & Spencer as a hypothetical example, assuming the user doesn’t click on any sponsored listings, if they click on an organic listing this is deemed “free” traffic for the merchant. You see the display url as www.marksandspencer.com (we shall call this the anchor text for familiarity) and if you view the link properties (target url) as www.marksandspencer.com too.

Remember: Google is the property of Google, and not the jurisdiction of merchants, affiliates or anybody else apart from Google themselves. Such that no publisher has any divine right to appear organically & that this “free” traffic is taken for granted.

Remember: I’ve long advocated the need for affiliates to develop their own search engines and keep web search on their site rather than the user returning to the search engine i.e. retain users on their own site.

Sometime ago (a few years) we developed small insignificant “search engines” utilising available backfills & implemented an idea called … “URL REPLACEMENT”

This initially involves creating a simple three column spreadsheet database containing merchant names, their website url & the affiliate link if they have a program on a network.

Before the organic results are displayed, all you simply do is match the display url with the database, if the display url matches, then the link properties (target url) are changed to the affiliate link. So in the case of Marks & Spencer, the display url / anchor text will remain www.marksandspencer.com, but the link properties (target url) will be replaced with the affiliate link.

Just for Marks & Spencer alone, Google could be making a six figure sum a month, now multiply this by the number of merchants with affiliate programs & the result is an absolute Gold Mine in additional income to possibly compete with their existing revenue via Google Adwords. Obviously Yahoo and Microsoft can do the same thing, why not it’s their search engine & property. The downside is that this could decimate affiliate marketing with regard to visitors returning via cookies who may return to the merchant via organic listings.

It might be interesting times ahead, when organic listings for retailers & services no longer becomes a “free” ride, currently these are being taken for granted, it’s misguided to have the perception that anyone has some divine right to acquire “free” traffic via organic search on their brand. I guess in essense a bit like the old “pay for inclusion”, if you remember those days.

If Google ran their own affiliate network or applied to a program on a network (that thought itself is quite peculiar), do you think a merchant would refuse them being a member of their program?

Obviously the same theory can be applied to customers searching for any generic phrases or product related terms whereby ALL matching display url’s within the organic results are substituted using the “URL REPLACEMENT” theory.

This is partly why in a previous blog I mentioned search engines like Google as the achilles heal of affiliate marketing unless the industry creates something itself, not to compete head to head, but outflank, maybe via niches & vertical sectors.

In the meantime affiliates & publishers can easily implement themselves within their own web sites utilising free & paid backfill results on a smaller scale to gain a moderate amount of increased revenue, scale it up and reap the rewards of your labour. The concept is simple but effective, you can even tweak the results by bringing merchants with an affiliate program to the fore in the organic results & even order them according to their EPC.

This is something we plan to do a lot further on a sizeable scale & maybe looking for trusted affiliates work alongside with & emabark on this bold venture.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 11th, 2008 at 1:17 PM and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 17 responses to “Google’s Untapped Gold Mine”

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  1. 1 On June 11th, 2008, gadget said:

    Very interesting, especially for local/own site search engines. In fact, I know of a large site that this would be perfect for.

    As for Google, wouldn’t they be tempted to massage their ‘natural’ results based on who’s commission structure was better?

  2. 2 On June 11th, 2008, Paul said:

    “Massage” is a lovely word to use. Yes that maybe a distinct possiblity, but with the sheer volume of traffic Google currently relish, they probably wouldn’t need to sacrifice the relevancy of their organic listings because of the significant rise in the incremental income they would receive. Unless of course they became greedier after it had been implemented for a while, once they realised how well it would work.

    For an affiliate building their own one, then yes perhaps they should massage the results, hence I mentioned “you can even tweak the results by bringing merchants with an affiliate program to the fore in the organic results & even order them according to their EPC.” which indeed does have a positive effect.

  3. 3 On June 11th, 2008, John Cronin said:

    @gadget …don’t google argue that their organic results are generated equally by their algo. They say that it’s because they give you relevant search results you’ll keep coming back for more. They want eyeballs on their site just as much as we all do.

    But what Paul suggests could obviously work within the current algo. The target URL could simply be swapped out with an affiliate link instead. Paul’s idea works – but you’ve still got to get those “eyeballs” in the first instance.

    I can’t see google, etc doing it but we should remind ourselves that search engines aren’t public service “broadcasters” – they are huge businesses who answer to their shareholders first and foremost.

    Good post!

    John

  4. 4 On June 11th, 2008, gadget said:

    John – I think Paul’s right if Google were to do this .. there’s a danger that the old green eyed monster kicks in.

    I totally agree that this post has highlighted the obvious point, that Google is a business and not a public service – and they’re bloody good at it!

  5. 5 On June 11th, 2008, Joe Connor said:

    Hi Paul,
    Interesting post, I hadn’t really thought about Google monetising the natural results before but it must be a serious temptation.
    I’m interested in using and/or being involved in alternatives.

  6. 6 On June 12th, 2008, Kier said:

    I think it would be an epically bad idea on Google’s part and isn’t something I can see them doing. For affiliates though sure, I can see it working.

  7. 7 On June 12th, 2008, Ex TRUS Affiliate said:

    I just can’t see any merchant accepting a search engine on their aff scheme. Why would they when it will just cost them a huge amount of extra cash?

    Some merchants already discriminate against incentive/cashback sites, so I can see them writing something into the terms and conditions like – No incentive sites or greedy search engines.

    If Google then delisted the merchant they’d just devalue their own search results. Users would get peed off and try another less greedy search engine.

  8. 8 On June 12th, 2008, SillyJokes said:

    A search engine that only chose to show results that are paid for would not necessarily produce good results. This would lead to a decline in users very quickly. Many searches are not product related for instance.

    In addition is this not the same as bidding on brand names? Would it lead to merchants abandoning affiliate marketing in favour of PPC or other search engines with free results. If it doesn’t prove profitable for the merchants then it will kill the stream.

    Also to say that a good natural listing is a ‘free ride’ simply isn’t true. Many merchants spend a considerable amount on SEO.

  9. 9 On June 12th, 2008, Paul said:

    Kier, I hear what you are saying & don’t disagree or agree with regard to Google.

    But when Google introduced paid search advertising did it detract consumers from using Google?

    Was it considered that the purity of Google had been unchastised?

    The consumer & publisher perspective would probably have differing opinions & if the relevancy of results was maintained, since it is the non visible target url which is changed most consumers would be none the wiser nor care, because of the status Google currently holds with them … more visible sponsored links haven’t detracted them so far.

    With Google increasingly introducing embedded search for searches on major brands, whereby often a search within the entry box brings is generic / product related & brings up further sponsored ads from other merchants, then this would be / could be an evolutionally step to further monetisation to please shareholders, where basically consumers would be none the wiser & would be simply accepted in the same manner as what sponsored ads were when they first introduced.

    Perhaps this is why Google labeled the ads as “sponsored links” rather than using the word “advertisments” and even then it wouldn’t be surprising that a high enough proportion of users think that sponsored links are part of the what we call organic search results.

    Because you & I are experienced in the industry, our thought process maybe different, it’s how the consumer will react (if at all) which is their prime consideration ie the considering of millions of users to that of a few thousand affiliates.

    Google’s main consideration would be if this could affect adwords revenue stream, i don’t think it would as generally the epc from cpa on brand might be higher than epc earned from an advertiser bidding on their own brand.

    With Google currently pummeling the revenue streams of their rivals, MSN & Yahoo might adopt, time we tell.

    With regard to affiliates own interests, yes this avenue is worth exploring further for bolder ventures.

  10. 10 On June 12th, 2008, Roseli A. Bakar said:

    Very interesting post indeed but I don’t see google doing it in the near future.

    But, affiliate marketers will laughing all the way to the bank if they do. lol

  11. 11 On June 12th, 2008, Charlie said:

    Some companies spend millions on SEO, trying to get to the top of the natural search results.
    They also spend many more millions on ppc.

    There’s no way they’d accept Google on to their affiliate program on top of that!

    I think it would be a bad move for Google in terms of damaging the relationship they’d want to
    have with their biggest spending clients.

    It’s likely Google already manually change the natural search results anyway, this would throw
    even more doubt on the credibility of their algorithm.

  12. 12 On June 12th, 2008, Paul said:

    Hi Sillyjokes, I hope you are well.

    “Also to say that a good natural listing is a ‘free ride’ simply isn’t true. Many merchants spend a considerable amount on SEO.”

    That is why I deliberately put “Free” in adverted commas “…” please refer to this other blog which explains a little about that costs are attributed to both.

    https://www.mooseontheloose.co.uk/why-should-you-be-able-to-seo-for-a-brand-when-you-cant-do-ppc-for-a-brand.html

    With regard to quality of results on Google, it would be suggested they are not tweaked but maintain their current algo as in aforementioned comments. Their pitfall would be if they become “green eyed” as mentioned by gadget earlier.

  13. 13 On June 12th, 2008, Paul said:

    Ex TRUS Affiliate,

    Fair point, though I doubt Google would delist a merchant, but then again I wouldn’t see a lot of merchants rejecting Google either because of the former leverage Google has but wouldn’t necessarily wield. May i refer to previous points on who actually owns the search engines, it’s not the merchants.

    I am not saying whether Google should or shouldn’t do it, but illustrating the Golden opportunity that is presented to them & how there is a possible opportunity for affiliates to do themselves.

    Also I am highlighting the dependency there is on search engines & single sources of traffic, maybe it’ll hit a nerve with merchants & there is a fear Google could easily adopt this or something similar, Is Google our friend or a business?

  14. 14 On June 12th, 2008, Paul said:

    Charlie,

    Again top point? How did SEO companies react or do they feel when paid search advertsing was introduced? I am not an SEO expert, but will embedded search for a big brand affect it slightly? Is SEO becoming progressively harder with the number of spots on the first page gradually declining? You are probably in a better & more experienced position than me to comment.

    Throwing another question into the pot … Could “url replacement” work where Froogle failed?

    Perhaps an underlying question I am asking is that will Google keep organic search in the long term relatively free and untarnished allowing SEO companies to try influence & massage the results, when shareholders are figuratively speaking crying out for more more more with the economic climate in a downward trend at the moment with the credit crunch?

  15. 15 On June 12th, 2008, Clarke said:

    It did cross my mind many moons ago they could do this, as that’s what spyware was doing to Google results anyway (i.e. if you where spyware infected when you either looked at results in the organic listings you where sent to spyware affiliates site or on click got redirected via spyware affiliates links) so wouldn’t take much of a step for Google to say, it’s our directory if we want the links to go via an Affiliate program than so be it, they just have the matter of people thinking they give higher listings to the ones making them money and they would hate for people to think that about them as it would then destroy peoples trust in the system.

  16. 16 On July 1st, 2008, Douglas Stuart said:

    Hi There,
    My first visit to site and found it both informative and extremely well written so my compliments. I operate in more or less the same “sphere” and wondered if you would be interested in creating “Reciprocal Links” between our sites ?

    I look forward to hearing from you

    Warmest Regards

    Douglas Stuart

  17. 17 On July 2nd, 2008, Winston said:

    I think it’s a great idea for a small site which provides a search facility. I think if Google did it however the economics would break down slightly. And actually I would go as far as saying it would go against their whole business model and that of affiliate marketing!

    For a start M&S would see a massive increase in costs. Way beyond their marketing budget would allow. Why would M&S accept them in the program? Unless Google threatened to affect their rank if they didn’t they would surely just say “no ta”.

    As an employee of a major site I know how significant branded Google traffic is and Im not sure our business model would allow for paying out x% to Google on all that traffic. Essentially it would be like dropping our prices by x% across the board!

    imo the whole affiliate concept is only valuable if the affiliate brings additional business. If they are bringing business that the merchant would have got anyway then why would the merchant pay for it?

    It reminds me of the way “discount codes” are going – I saw an add in the paper today for a voucher site listing 10% of half a dozen sites. If all sites offer this discount doesn’t it become irrelevant and a chore for the end users! It just becomes pointless! It actually puts me off buying because I cant be bothered to constantly find voucher codes and I resent paying the full price when I know I dont have to! Oh – Im going off topic – oops!!

    Just my thoughts. A fab idea for small affiliate sites. Technically easy and transparent to the end user. Nice 1.

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