As far as I know direct linking isn't allowed on Google, meaning you have to build a landing page. They aren't too keen on affiliate links in general.
Adwords up to date
- Thread starter JoseArmando
- Start date
As far as I know direct linking isn't allowed on Google, meaning you have to build a landing page. They aren't too keen on affiliate links in general.
Direct linking is allowed on Google. Period, end of story. They have no idea who has the "rights" to advertise for a site (esp since so many small business site owners are using some other firm for their ppc campaigns).
Two important points here
1) In search they will only allow a single ad for a domain to be shown, meaning only one of x number of ads for that domain will win, regardless of number of advertisers. This is why (with a good ad) you can have your ad shown in place of the domain owner's own campaign and why lots of affiliate programs have restrictions on trademark bidding / out ranking the advertiser.
2) They dont want bridge pages because then you get all results for the essentially same product / site (with one extra hop).
woah there bro stop getting mad. i dont read your posts nor do i give a shit who you are. I also never stated that direct linking doesn't work, i just said it doesn't work for me. and from what everyone has told me so far, geo-redirects are the issue so your post was meaningless anyway. stop taking up space with your useless/angry interjections
Not targeting this towards anyone but the amount of misinformation regarding Google Adwords is ridiculous.
They don't hate affiliates, they own a fucking affiliate network.
Here is from their own FAQ (emphasis mine).
What is Google's affiliate auction policy?
We'll only display one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top-level domain in the display URL. This means that if you're an affiliate advertiser, your ad may not show for a query because another affiliate or the website that runs the affiliate program also has ads using the same (or a similar) domain in the display URL.
For example, for the domain 'google.com,' we would determine the following URLs and display URLs to be equivalent:
home.google.com
Google
google.com
Google Custom Search Engine - Site search and more
Google
However, we'd determine the following display URLs to be distinct, since each has a different top-level domain:
www.google.co.uk*
Google
Google
www.google.edu
*Domains with a specific extension are considered distinct.
Also, your site shouldn't mirror (be similar or nearly identical to) your parent company's or another advertiser's site. Google won't show multiple ads for identical or similar landing pages at the same time. This means that if another advertiser's ad leads to a landing page that's similar to yours, and his keyword has a higher Ad Rank, his ad will show instead of yours. Learn more about this policy.
Helpful Definitions:
Display URL
This is the URL displayed on your ad to identify your site to users. This URL displayed is limited to 35 characters; it need not be the same as the URL your ad links to, but it should be an actual URL that is part of your site.
Domain
Website domains are a naming procedure by which web users may identify a particular website address and location (e.g., Google). They are usually made up of two parts: a name and a category. The following are common URL domain categories: .com (commercial), .edu (education), and .gov (government). Domain categories can also be location-specific, for example: .fr (France) , .br (Brazil), or .jp (Japan). In some cases, one category is appended to another category, for example: examplename.co.uk, examplename.com.ph, examplename.org.uk).
They don't hate affiliates, they own a fucking affiliate network.
Here is from their own FAQ (emphasis mine).
What is Google's affiliate auction policy?
We'll only display one ad per search query for advertisers sharing the same top-level domain in the display URL. This means that if you're an affiliate advertiser, your ad may not show for a query because another affiliate or the website that runs the affiliate program also has ads using the same (or a similar) domain in the display URL.
For example, for the domain 'google.com,' we would determine the following URLs and display URLs to be equivalent:
home.google.com
google.com
Google Custom Search Engine - Site search and more
However, we'd determine the following display URLs to be distinct, since each has a different top-level domain:
www.google.co.uk*
www.google.edu
*Domains with a specific extension are considered distinct.
Also, your site shouldn't mirror (be similar or nearly identical to) your parent company's or another advertiser's site. Google won't show multiple ads for identical or similar landing pages at the same time. This means that if another advertiser's ad leads to a landing page that's similar to yours, and his keyword has a higher Ad Rank, his ad will show instead of yours. Learn more about this policy.
Helpful Definitions:
Display URL
This is the URL displayed on your ad to identify your site to users. This URL displayed is limited to 35 characters; it need not be the same as the URL your ad links to, but it should be an actual URL that is part of your site.
Domain
Website domains are a naming procedure by which web users may identify a particular website address and location (e.g., Google). They are usually made up of two parts: a name and a category. The following are common URL domain categories: .com (commercial), .edu (education), and .gov (government). Domain categories can also be location-specific, for example: .fr (France) , .br (Brazil), or .jp (Japan). In some cases, one category is appended to another category, for example: examplename.co.uk, examplename.com.ph, examplename.org.uk).
If you're direct linking an offer with geo-redirects (especially Azoogle offers), you should be geo-redirecting everything outside of the target geo to the direct landing page (no affiliate tracking, just get them to a page on that site), on your own side, though a redirect (not an LP) on your domain.
No pop-up or pop-under windows on landing page, but you can simply replace with JavaScript/HTML code.
I learned this the hard way because the network I was working with was redirecting some countries to adult friend finder and I didn't proxy check the links out from enough locations. Of course now I've implemented your solution and don't rely on the networks. I'm sure google thought I was cloaking. Oh well, live and learn.