Perry Belcher worries that Google, driven mad by power, may decide to exercise its editorial discretion to crush affiliate marketing via Adwords.  He even took a Godwinian shortcut by quoting Pastor Niemoller’s famous “First They Came” poem.

Another chorus of voices argues that Adwords is affiliate-friendly turf and that those who operate on a commission model have nothing to fear.  Some, like “The Secret of Magnetic Sponsoring” go so far as to paint Google as a benevolent best bud to the affiliate crowd, reminding us that G is happy to show them “exactly how to get the most out of using Adwords.”  There is no cause for alarm.

The truth, as it so often does, lies somewhere between the apcolyptic warnings of Chicken Little and the dopey optimism of Bobby McFerrin’s “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”.

Belcher maintains that Google has targeted the MLM industry for an Adwords whippin’.  Relying on an email from an amigo, Perry argues that multi-level marketers are on the receiving end of a Google slap as painful  as a Joe Frazier left hook.  According to PB, MLM is out of G’s PPC.  A network marketer can’t buy a click these days, and everyone better wake up before Google decides to arbitrarily crush other sectors.

Belcher’s worries about a crashing sky aren’t altogether misplaced.  In a follow-up audio, he correctly noted that Google has been more than happy to cut off other industries.  Belcher alluded to the temporarily-lucrative “water for gas” ebooks that lined affiliate pockets when gas prices were bobbing around the $5/gallon mark.  He didn’t mention the acai/colon cleanse/abs-like-a-washboard beatdowns allegedly  administered by Google, but those are other examples.  G has long banned “data entry affiliates”, too.

Google is not afraid to exercise a little discretion with respect to Adwords.  If you end up on the wrong side of their perspective on these products/sectors, you might find it damn near impossible to buy traffic.  Even if they don’t outright shut down the niche, they can whack quality scores down to “poor”, knowing that will make it very tough, if not impossible,  to create a winning campaign.  It’s not easy to experience a positive ROI when you’re wearing the Adwords dunce cap.

The “drop the landing page quality scores” trick seems to be what Google is doing with the MLM crowd.  I’m yet to see any persuasive evidence indicating that MLM is getting the “drive your Caddy on tap water” treatment, but there is reason to believe that marketers are finding once good quality scores transformed into failing grades.

In the aforementioned audio, Belcher advocates industry self-policing and a willingness for legitimate businesses to put up a well-mannered and well-reasoned fight.  That’s not bad advice if you’re involved in a business type that operates in potentially risky territory, I suppose.  Others who are upset by Google’s actions have once again called for the creation of some legitimate competitor to the Mountain View Monster.

So, is the sky falling?

Not quite.  If you’re an affiliate marketer (and especially if you function primarily in niches that are far removed from the ‘net’s snake oil peddlers), Google doesn’t seem hellbent on crushing you.  They still want your ad money.  They just want you to behave yourself well enough that you don’t scare away the search engine users in the process of conducting your business.

Google has to perform that Adwords balancing act.  If they let Adwords spots become low-rent crap, it annoys users.  Google likes having users.  If they get too hardcore about what will and will not pass muster, however, they drive ad money away.  Google likes ad money.  They’re always going to be looking for the perfect tweak to make users happy while scoring as many advertisers as possible.  In some cases, they’re going to decide that the best way to do that is via direct intervention in terms of allowable topics and quality scores.

If you play by the rules, though, you can keep on doing the affiliate thing via Adwords.  And, luckily, the rules are pretty simple.  Don’t just redirect visitors.  Don’t just frame the product owner’s sales page or squeeze page and call it a day.  Avoid creating paper-thin bridge pages that don’t add any real value to the visitors’ “user experience”.

Google has been kind enough to combine that little list of “don’ts” with a good explanation of “do’s”.  Create your own landing page.  Provide a quality user experience in terms of structure and navigation.  Make sure the content is relevant to the keywords and the ad.  Provide those nifty little extras like “about” pages, terms of service and privacy statements.  Most importantly, make it worthwhile for someone to take a trip over to your site.

And how do you do that?  The easiest and most effective way is to provide good content.  That’s right, give the people something they can use.  Give them some real information, some genuine insight, some smart guidance, some resources…  Don’t stink.

Yes, it will require more effort to do things the right way than it would to redirect a $.99 GoDaddy .info domain to your affiliate link.  Sure, you’ll have to do more than to frame the parent product’s squeeze page.  You’ll even need to do more than tossing up one of the articles you found on the parent product’s affiliate resource site.

You’re going to have to work.  Understanding the ins and outs of effective pay per click marketing is a necessary step in the moneymaking process.  Necessary, but not sufficient.  It needs to be combined with an understanding (and, just as importantly, really) a willingness to put something together that adds quality and meaning to the Internet.

If you’re walking around whistling “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, you can expect someone to give you a solid gut punch.  That someone might just be Google.  You don’t want Google to punch you.  Pay attention to what’s happening and act accordingly to stay in G’s good graces if you want to keep using Adwords as a traffic source.

If you’re afraid that Google is suddenly going to pull the rug out from under every affiliate marketer, you’re wasting time and energy.  Google wants your money.  It just doesn’t want you to be an ass. It makes sense ot be a little more nervous if you’re in a questionable niche, but that shouldn’t come as a surprise.  When you hang out in bad neighborhoods, bad things are likely to happen, right?

The whole of the sky is unlikely to fall any time soon.  If a few ceiling tiles come loose, it’ll be because they’re situated over the places where snake oil peddlers like to congregate.   That does not, however, give anyone cause to walk around whistling a happy tune without a care in the world.  There will continue to be a place in the Adwords world for affiliates, but only those who do it “the right” way are going to cash the big checks.

You can stop reading now if you don’t want the sales pitch.

I believe that quality written material is a great way to achieve the best possible landing page quality scores.  If you want to get the most out of your Adwords-based affiliate efforts, get in touch.  We can come up with the right plan–and the right copy–to get the job done.