Once again the “Big G” has issued a series of slaps to websites that have not been following their guidelines. The funny thing is the majority of these sites belong to internet marketers. When are marketers going to learn that the geeks at Google are capable of figuring out all this automated software nonsense engulfing the internet?

It is not a secret that the “Big G” does not like marketers. The least we could is just behave, right? Absolutely not. Marketers are content to continuously do the Google shuffle where one day they are successfully building a thriving online business and the next day they are in the internet forums trying to figure out what went wrong.

It is actually quite simple, Google wants quality content that receives genuine “likes”, “google+’s’ and real followers. Of course, they will never be able catch all the websites online that are not following their guidelines; But do you really want to play Russian roulette with your online business? If so, then when Google slaps, don’t cry about it, just slap back.

Slap back by relinquishing yourself of the dependence of Google traffic. There is more than just the “Big G” dominating the internet. Last I checked, Facebook was the most visited website online. Email marketing is still a very powerful tool and gives you the opportunity to connect with your customers even more. Mobile marketing is shooting like a rocket.

Maybe the reason why we are so in love with Google is because they are so easy. Well, they have decided that they are going to be just as difficult to crack as social media marketing, mobile marketing and list building; No more easy exact match domain crappy affiliates sites. Marketers are just going to have to treat Google like their lover; Either love them and give them what they want or leave them alone.

It may take a lot longer to create quality content that people will genuinely like. But in reality, it takes about the same amount of time to put together crappy websites that has to be revamped due to a Google slap. Think about how productive your optin email list would be if you continuously sent them spun email content that did not make any sense. The truth is, your subscribers would eventually slap you too by hitting the unsubscribe link.

About The Author

Marc Marseille has been an online marketer since 2006. He currently runs Front Page VIP, an internet marketing consultant company for local metro Atlanta businesses. You can read more about email marketing by visiting Marc Marseille’s blog at Optin Mail Lists.

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Does Google hate affiliate marketers? ‘Hate’ may be a little extreme but I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that Google doesn’t want websites and web pages in its search engine index that it believes add no value to – or junk up – its search results. Unfortunately for many affiliate marketers, Google interprets many affiliate sites as doing exactly that.

Affiliate marketers have long suspected Google’s ire towards them, whether as a result of seeing their sites removed from Google’s index or of having to pay exorbitant pay-per-click costs to advertise in Google Adwords. Recently, a proprietary Google document surfaced on the Internet and in affiliate marketing circles that put all such doubts to rest. The document – which Google has subsequently sought to remove from those who have published it – indicates that Google distrusts, devalues and may even de-index websites that do little more than promote affiliate products or services.

Affiliate marketers can whinge and whine all they like about the powerful Google and its ability to destroy their businesses. The fact is, however, that if their business model is based on Google search traffic, they have to play by Google’s rules. And Google does not want to send traffic – organic or paid search traffic – to websites it sees as offering its search engines users a poor search experience.

So while we can argue that many affiliate sites do, in fact, add value – they may, for example, enable someone to find a product or service they’re looking for more easily than the upstream merchant – Google may not see it that way.

What should affiliate marketers do to get on Google’s good side (i.e. stay indexed and, ideally, get a high search engine ranking)? And, by the way, there are still some affiliate marketing companies and websites that appear to be doing very well in Google, so there does seem to be a way for affiliates to appease Google.

My suggestion lies, firstly, in what, ultimately, Google wants to see in its index: search results that match what its users are looking for. It’s simple: if you are targeting certain keywords make sure your website and web pages provide the type of content, products and services that people using those keywords are likely to want.

Of course, many affiliates would argue that they DO provide what people are searching for – after all, that is the whole point of targeting certain keywords – yet, this still doesn’t satisfy Google.

If so, then affiliate marketers must do more than simply provide, say, affiliate links for products that people are using Google to find. In this case, affiliates need to be more than just affiliate marketers and provide much more value than just affiliate links or, dare I say, lame ‘how to’ articles.

What added value looks like for a given affiliate marketer will vary according to the site, niche and products or services being promoted. It’s likely, however, that the key is to find an answer to the following question:

“How can I help the visitor MORE than if they simply go straight to the merchant’s website?”

In other words, how can you reconfigure your website in such a way that a visitor would rather come to your site – and buy through you – than going directly to the merchant? If you can, indeed, distinguish your site in this way then you will be enhancing Google’s users search engine experience and, hopefully, be seen by Google as having a relevant, authoritative website or web page for a given search term. Rather than have your site removed from Google’s search engine index, you’ll be more likely to see your site move up in the rankings.

Of course, that’s the theory… Google may still be biased against any affiliate websites and there’s not much one can do about that except leave the affiliate business or aim to get more traffic from OTHER sources. I recently discussed this with a major affiliate marketer who said his company intended to generate at least 40 percent of its traffic from non-Google sources in 2012. That may be a good goal for ALL affiliate marketers.

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Google’s latest search engine algorithm will impact 35 percent of search engine searches, according to Google Fellow Amit Singal. Hint: it’s all about recency AND relevancy.

Google announced its new ranking algorithm change last Thursday. It builds on the Caffeine web indexing system, which Google introduced in 2010 to allow the search engine to quickly crawl and index the Internet for fresh content on a much larger scale than before.

The Google algorithm change is aimed at displaying the most relevant and recent results for hot topics, recurring events and information that changes often.

For example, Google will display real-time results i.e. pages that may be only a few minutes old if they contain the most authoritative content on a hot topic. In a similar vein, Google will display the most relevant recent results for regularly recurring events. In this regard, if you type in the name of an annual conference or event, Google will display the most recent example e.g. the London 2012 Olympics for a search on “Olympics”.

Finally, Google’s algorithm change also aims to display the most recent results for information that frequently changes but is not what you’d call a hot topic or recurring event. If you search for reviews on a particular product, for instance, Google will display the most recent reviews on the most recent model of that product.

These are all good moves that reflect Google’s progress towards better understanding and interpreting people’s searches. For Internet marketers and web masters the algorithm changes clearly means a greater bias towards the most recent content on a given topic, provided it is also the most relevant.

No question, a high search engine ranking is increasingly about being the most recent AND the most relevant. You might even say that being recent is integral to being relevant.

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U.S. mobile social media usage rose by 37 percent in the past year, with 72.2 million Americans accessing social networking sites or blogs via mobile device in August 2011, according to research by comScore, Inc.

Almost 40 million U.S. mobile users – over half of the estimated U.S. mobile social media audience – visit social media sites via mobile each day, reports the research firm.

comScore’s research also shows that, right now, more mobile users access social media sites via their mobile web browser than via a social networking app (42.3 million compared with 38.5 million).

This is likely to change, however. The growth in users accessing social media sites via social networking app is much higher than the growth in access via mobile browser. In the last year those accessing social media sites via mobile browser rose by 24 percent, compared with the huge 126 percent growth in the audience for social networking apps.

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1 in 6 Americans or 15 percent of U.S. adults now use an e-reader or electronic reading device, almost double the 8 percent in 2010. What’s more, of those Americans who don’t have an e-reader, 1 in 6 plan to get one in the next 6 months.

Based on a Harris Poll of 2,183 adults in July 2011, those with e-readers also tend to read more than American adults in general. While 16 percent of Americans read 11-20 books per year and 20 percent read 21 or more books per year, a third of e-reader owners (32 percent) read 11-20 books a year and over a quarter (27 percent) read 21 or more books per year.

Not only are e-reader users more avid readers but they also tend to buy more books. Around 10 percent of American adults in general bought 11-20 books and 9 percent bought 21 or more books in the past year. Meanwhile, 17 percent of e-reader device owners bought 11-20 books and 17 percent bought 21 or more books in the past year.

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