In the last few months, the affiliate business of famous websites like Forbes, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Fortune, and Time has suffered a major setback due to Google's new policy. The search ranking of all these websites has seen a huge drop due to the 'Site Reputation Abuse' policy recently implemented by Google. This has led to losses worth crores. This change has not only affected their profits but has also raised questions about the future of the affiliate model.
Recently, search visibility firm Sistrix and several search consultants have spoken on the issue. According to Sistrix, these companies have suffered a total loss of at least $7.5 million (about Rs 61 crore) due to the decline in search. These media companies had adopted the affiliate business model in partnership with third-party companies such as Forbes Marketplace, Credible, and Three Ships, which were operating under their brands and were making good profits from it. All the information about this has been given in a report by Mark Steinberg and Paul Hebert published in Adweek.
Since the matter is quite technical, it can be understood with an example - CNN's product recommendation platform named 'CNN Underscored' was being run by a third-party company Forbes Marketplace. Both companies used to share the profits from this, and their search rankings also remained very strong due to this affiliate model. Many experts addressed it as 'Parasite SEO' because this model used the name of the main website to take advantage of its search ranking.
97% decline in Time Stamped
The decline in search ranking started in July when the ranking of Time's affiliate site 'Time Stamped' fell drastically. After this, other major affiliate sites were also affected in late September and early October. According to Sistrix, from September 12 to October 31, Forbes Advisor fell by 43%, WSJ Buy-Side by 77%, CNN Underscored by 63%, Fortune Recommends by 72% and Time Stamped by 97%. According to search expert Lily Ray, even a slight drop in search rankings can lead to huge financial losses. According to a former Forbes Advisor employee, "If there was even a slight fluctuation in our rankings, editors would have to face questions from top management."
Did Google target?
According to Sistrix marketing manager Steve Pine, this drop has been seen only in the affiliate sections of these companies, not in the main domain. This unusual pattern shows that the effect of Google's new policy is limited to the affiliate sections of these sites. According to Pine, "Targeting a particular directory requires a very special algorithm or manual intervention, which has happened in this case."
Site Reputation Abuse Policy
Google's 'Site Reputation Abuse' policy implemented in May is believed to be the reason for this new decline. Google is now trying to stop such affiliate business models, which increase search rankings by using the name of the main website. Citing a Google spokesperson, Adweek wrote that Google's spam policy has been improved to prevent these deceptive methods and to ensure that a part of the site is not completely different from the main content.
Media companies will have to invest more.
This decline may increase financial pressure on major media companies. Forbes, which is currently planning to sell Koch Inc.'s private equity branch for about $570 million (about Rs 4,635 crore), the reduction in the value of its affiliate business may affect these deals. Similarly, Time, which its owners Marc and Lynne Benioff are planning to sell for about $150 million (about Rs 1,220 crore), could also be affected by this decline.
The future of the affiliate model may be uncertain as a result of this new change. According to search expert Ray, "This model was very successful for a few years, but now Google has started cracking down on it." In the future, media companies will have to take control of the affiliate business to benefit from it, which will require investment in more capital and resources.
