Velocity Credit Cards spam Google

This post follows on from an ongoing issue with affiliate networks being better than the actual publisher at search optimisation and at times spamming the search results with duplicate content.  Google has begun the process of applying gradual penalties and progressing to complete removal from affiliates from the search index. The problem is often affiliate networks are constantly launching new domains, subdomains off existing domains faster than Google is responding.

With all the recent hype around VirginBlue’s Velocity Gold upgrade failure, there has been a significant uplift in search volume and it appears that some of these affiliate/automated results show the most to gain.

We can see from the results shown below that Velocity ranks #1 the Fairfax OMG owned #2 CreditCards.com.au result actually has a better call to action in its result and so would likely get a reasonable amount of clicks.  It is also noted that the NAB product information page does not actually feature in the first page of results and actually ranks #20 for the term “velocity gold”.

This poor ranking for one of their products shows that NAB needs to focus more on their online products as they are likely losing customers to affiliate networks who can often convert to sales better. As shown later in this post Banks.com.au are cross-promoting other Banks products against your product and also feature ads for competitors products such as the Qantas AMEX card.

I have removed a Google news link and a link to a forum FlyerTalk for visual purposes.  But what about the remaining results and why do they all look similar? I have included the graphic of who provides the content and we can see the results are dominated by Mozo who appear to power the automated and duplicate content that is shown in the results. The final result is a Naked Communications run finance website likely operated on behalf of a client.

The Mozo-powered results are purely automated results with the only difference being the website name dynamically inserted into the page title and meta description.  The results look like spam and do not appear to provide a quality response to users.

To show what I mean by automated/duplicate content for the Mozo-powered product I have included the pages shown above. The only slight difference between each of the pages is the website template being used with all using the same on site text content, on site images and even layout.  This is not quality content this is lazy automated results spamming the search results!

What about OMG Fairfax?

So lets compare the search results from OMG Fairfax and why they are similar websites why their results are better quality and more relevant.  Comparing Banks.com.au and CreditCards.com.au both while the content is similar I can clearly see while the text is similar they have ensured that the page titles and meta descriptions are unique but still relevant to the search result.

Meta Descriptions

The page description are included below to make it easier for you to visualise the slight differences in results.

CreditCards.com.au

NAB Velocity Gold Credit Card – review and compare Velocity Gold Credit Card features and apply for credit cards online.

Banks.com.au

The NAB Velocity Gold Credit Card – review the Velocity Gold Credit Card from NAB, compare features and apply for credit cards online.

Why is it not duplicate content?

So while both pages contain similar content why is CreditCards.com.au ranked higher than Banks.com.au? The CreditCard domain actually has around 20% more on site content related to the Velocity Gold Credit Card and also its domain is a more relevant for the content.

Do you agree with my analysis of the search results and do you think the issue of affiliate/automated content is increasing or just getting better quality and harder to spot?

VirginBlue fails Marketing with Velocity Gold Upgrade

Everyone loves a free lunch so on at 5:01pm on a Friday afternoon it was great to receive a personalised thank you email from VirginBlue’s Velocity Membership program.

Virgin is known for smart and effective marketing campaigns so this did not appear to be too much of a stretch to be true. The email promised a free upgrade to “gold” membership for one year FREE!

Checking all the details, the membership number was correct as was my details and the email address it was sent too.  I have been travelling a bit more lately so it appeared possible that it might be real.

While the email seemed almost too good to be true, clicking on the link too me too the correct website pages and everything seemed legit.  It wasn’t until I watch a tweet from BenGrubb which I later discovered was correct.  His quick post on the issue outlined that VirginBlue had blamed an IT error for the gold upgrade.

Watching some of the initial reactions from Twitter before and after they sent the apology email did not seem to quell the dissatisfaction felt by the Velocity member’s who received the email. Some of the reactions were understanding but many brought up issues of anger and dissatisfaction with Virgin’s response to the issue.  Some of the later tweets discussed the issue of members being spammed as they have previously un-subscribed from Velocity email marketing lists.

@jameswilliams90 - @virginblue take personal responsibility and stop blaming the date Fri 13th for your bulk email gold upgrade debacle! #fail

@dannyrod - #virginblue are terrible, sent me a gold status for my velocity rewards and then withdrew it! I was so excited to fly them again but no haha

@zoomzoom83 - I don’t envy #virginblue tech support right now. Or the guy that fucked the email up.

@TheAviator1992 - @VirginBlue That was a really nasty trick…

@silverstackers - @VirginBlue – #oops? I want my Gold status!

@raejada - Friday 13th sucks! I would have been able to use that upgrade this year So…what scale of a mistake is it exactly??? #virginblue

@le_sloth - damnit I thought it was too good to be true getting my #virginblue gold upgrade

@yarrcat - @VirginBlue offers me gold membership, then withdraws it. http://bit.ly/3B0X9s http://bit.ly/4DIubi  Not the only one. Friday night #fail

@jamesmcc - @DamianEdwards @jodiem I got the same email from @VirginBlue I was quite excited and said wow thats great customer service, guess not

@yarrcat - @Tuna Dang, seems like a lot of people got the @virginblue rug pulled out from under them. Sigh.

@johnsee - Dear @virginblue. Thanks for getting my hopes up for nothing…

@sportsthought - @VirginBlue wtf? Tell us we have upgrades then send lame email apology! – that’s poor customer service

@shimmmergirl - I doubt @VirginBlue email was a mistake…was it just a way to promote the ‘gold status? If so, acute social media mistake!

@RugbyRiddler - Getting rolled by both Qantas and VirginBlue on the same day – marvellous!

@shimmmergirl - think @VirginBlue may have class action on its hands sending out ‘gold status’ upgrade emails, then calling it Fri 13 mistake. Dodgy!

@lukasmarshall - Seriously uncool @VirginBlue. Seriously uncool. How many people got the email? Would it really be that much of a stretch to honor it?

@CarFullOfBogans - @VirginBlue you pieces of shit. You sent this out pricks

@I_enigma - RT @jodiem: So it looks like Virgin Blue may have breached the spam act also by sending to people who opted out already. #virginblue

@reebostyler - @VirginBlue worst mistake ever! I was about to purchase confirmed seats due to the (not so) awesome email!

@stormgc - @VirginBlue Come on guys I want my free Gold upgrade!

@nic_leah - seems like @virginblue had a huge email stuff up today. disappointed gold for a year sounded awesome

@CodeJedi

just got the retraction email from @VirginBlue… no longer Gold… that was short…think I’ll stick with Qantas…

@maungle

Hey #virginblue – you can’t take away the gold upgrade you just gave me! Not fair!

@DanielMK

@Dannyrod mate, I’m starting a #virginblue boycott. From now on it’s #tigerairways for me!!!

Most of these tweets appear to get progressively worse for the brand and the PR for the company, so what is the companies initial response?

VirginBlue Response

So its often important to see how quickly a company responds, with Virgin they managed to send out a followup email 3 hours after the initial mistake.  While this is a short term solution based on the tweets many of their Velocity members do not feel it is satisfactory for such a failure.

The initial members that flooded the website causing it to crash and also the customer service phone calls did not see this update unless they visited the website some time after they received the initial email.

The delay in sending out a followup email of up to 3 hours does not show a full understanding of the greater issue and the importance of a quick response.  It would have not been a massive issue for VirginBlue to offer to honor the deal or at least offer a discount off a future VirginBlue flights.

The official tweet from the VirginBlue account did not seem to go beyond a general generic response.  Using social media platforms such as twitter allow one-to-one communication but they failed to do this….

@VirginBlue

Friday the 13th strikes! Some members have been advised of an upgrade that they are ineligible for. We regret any inconvenience caused.

Failure learnings?

So what can be learned from this situation, first point is that if you stuff up, monitor the social media traffic to see what the key issue is and what are the angry/outspoken members looking for as a possible resolution.  In this case there appeared to be a consistent feeling that honoring the deal would have resolved the situation and been a great PR exercise for the Velocity program.

Did the initial offer match the velocity program? Yes, to make the issue more of a sore spot, read the footer below included on the email sent to members. So it is a fair point that people could have believed that the email was realistic, believable and likely to be true….

Google Keyword Significance Tool

Google webmaster tools continues to evolve with a visual element added to its keyword data it provides to webmasters who have verified that they are the current owner of the site. There new webmaster feature mix some search optimisation benefits and an easier way to flag spam and hacked content.

Google Keyword Significance Tool

The new keyword feature is updated daily, and provides details on how often their Googlebot found a specific keyword.  To further add value to webmaster they now also provide a list of URLs that contain that specific keyword.

This replaces the previous numerical value that was listed within Webmaster tools.  The daily update allows for monitoring website rebuilds or identifying if your website has been hacked.  If you start to see your website appearing for unrelated search results you can use this feature to find if you have keywords hidden in your content.

You can drill into these keywords and quickly identify which URLs contain them and eliminate any hacked content. We ensure all our clients are running Google webmaster tools to ensure they avoid any issues like Malware, Hidden content or Spam or check out this Webmaster’s Guide.

Verizon’s droid marketing campaign

Google/Verizon have followed Bing’s lead in the go big or go home with their new $100 million marketing campaign for Droid.

When Microsoft launched Bing with their $100 million marketing campaign across the world agencies were being constantly critical for the big budget, not much seems to have been said from any agencies yet about Google/Verizon’s massive campaign.

What makes this interesting is that this is just for the US market which demonstrates how seriously they want to win market share off the Apple iPhone. How much would they spend if they launched a worldwide campaign?

The blanket $100 million campaign will likely so big that you cannot escape it online or offline if you live in the US, watch US television or visit US web properties.   The initial “anti-iphone” campaign appears almost to have an evil hint closer to a Skynet device used to take over the world. According to the AdAge article much of the budget will be spent before the end of the year.  Being halfway through November this is a direct pitch at the Christmas sales and maybe some change left over for post-Christmas sales.

It appears that this Android campaign started on the 6th November, first covered by TechCrunch in the image below, where they added a link to the frontpage of Google.com. This is a massive exposure for the new Verizon/Motorola phone as Google has around 2,500,000,000 visits a month according to Compete.com site statics for Google.

This homepage link leads Google visitors to a Droid campaign landing page which interestingly does not feature their partners logos but do mention them by name.  Even with the multiple step process to find out more it means that Verizon will likely not get too much of a free ride, but the sheer volume would make up for if it meant a lower conversion rates.

The Droid landing page has 3 features that they believe are the key benefits of the device:

• Search by Voice
• Quick Search Box
• Speak and Find Your Way

Some of the other features discussed in some of the videos discuss how Droid can do things that the iPhone can’t such as take photos in the dark.  It seems that the gloves are off between the two companies in promoting their mobile devices.

The Verizon page is very heavy around content for the product, with a lot of video and images but all built in flash.  It is interesting that Ajax was not used to build the such visual site.  The DroidDoes website has a heavy push around the benefits of the device that highlight some its key differences to the iPhone. One of the more annoying features is the strange crackle sound when you move the mouse over any of the items and the slow load times.

• 5 Megapixel camera
• Hi-Res Camera
• Speech Recognition
• Multitasking
• Tunes
• Turn-by-turn navigation
• Runs Andriod 2.0
• Notification Panel

If you want to watch the TV clip from the new Verizon campaign, check it out below before you see it everywhere…

Google offers a hosted eCommerce solution

Google has released a new product to its impressive list of hosted solutions which include Google AdWords, Google Analytics, Google Apps and Google Maps.  The new product Google Commerce Search seeks to fill the gap between website visitors “buyers” and purchase “Checkout” and capture a greater share of the market.

Google understands more than most the benefit of an optimised store designed to generate more revenue.  The new store seeks to roll out some of the features of Google SiteSearch into a hosted store product. The new store works to offer an improved shopping experience:

• find the right products faster
• filter results by category,price,brand
• user-friendly spelling options
• website optimiser
• boost or promote products in search results
• deploy solutions in days
• scale your online store

Google Commerce Search

works to take away the resources required to run a typical e-commerce site. But its first version appears to have been released into the market far too early. One of the most common features I regularly saw was error pages…

Currently you can see a live versions of its hosted Commerce product on the US version of Google Store and play with some of its filter and sort features.  Our initial review makes the community think they have placed design and google search optimisation as future feature to be added in a later version. From our agency consulting projects we have discovered that design and search optimisation is one of the most important features of any e-commerce store and one that should not be a left out.

Seo risks using it?

Another secondary issue that has been discussed is that if you are sending all your traffic to a Google hosted site using search optimisation you would be advised to be careful how aggressive you are.  If you are in a highly competitive industry and your agency is starting to move towards blackhat methods this product may not be the best solution for you…

Are you currently spamming for traffic?

Overly paranoid marketers are starting to wonder if even using certain affiliate marketing programs or paid referral links which are overly aggressive there is a chance that you might get caught out if you are sending all this traffic to Google.  Google has been working to weed out spammy or low quality affiliates in their rankings over the past few months.  So the initial feeling is that if you are breaking some of the many T&C set by the search engines it might not be the best product for you or your clients.

But i don’t live in USA

The biggest issues are that this product currently only has a small test audience and like most new products will take 1-2 years to be available to markets outside the US. There are existing solutions from leading providers like SLI-Systems that have a managed site search that can be deployed into an existing store, why rebuild your store in a Google Store?

Site search solutions

We like our readers to have some choice in what other solutions are out there that recommend to our clients to use for their projects.  So you can chose to wait for Google Commerce Search to catchup or you can look at a solution such as SLI Sytems that offer a 30 day free trial.

What is learning search?

Systems such as SLI-Systems are a tried and tested solution and we included below a diagram on how simple it is to use their learning search process, we suggest if you are looking to increase your current site conversion rates, you should give their product a try.