We all know about the heavily discussed AdWords landing page quality score that has come into play recently. A WebmasterWorld thread shows a conversation one Google AdWords advertiser had with his representative. Basically, what it says is that Google will be doing what they can to remove affiliate ads from the AdWords program.
So I called the support number. Here is the short of it: Google is deliberately removing all affiliate programs from adwords listings. They had a quality team go through and rate their experience on a whole wide group of sites, including affiliate sites. The over-all score for affiliate sites was not high enough to pass their new guidelines therfore they are all being flagged and when found are being removed. Indirectly of course with the $10 min bids.When I asked what I could do to make it meet their new guidelines she told me, "Honestly we have not had any good news for these types of sites." No help offered.
There has been no response from any official Google representative in the thread as of the time of posting this. Well, the thread is less than 24 hours long, but it is 3 pages deep.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
