photo credit: dsearlsSince I was one of the first to criticize Affiliate Summit for inviting Jason to deliver the keynote address in at ASW08 in Las Vegas, I think I have to write something on the subject. Not being able to attend the Summit this time around I could not wait for the blogs to buzz about the keynote adress. Sam Harrelson did and outstanding job blogging live from the the floor. However listening to the podcast featuring Jason’s keynote, I realize that I may have overreacted on several occasions while commenting on the subject.
Did Jason brought valid points? Probably. However I can’t take his observation seriously as long as he continues to be hypocritical about his “search engine”.
My grief with Jason has a lot to do with paid reviews. My experience with the paid reviews ended in disappointment and conclusion that it is not the business model I would like to pursue. While testing that model I have burned myself badly. Not only my reputation was put on the line, I was faced with a possible law suit over a stupid review I wrote. Apparently after writing the review I also managed to write 160+ negative comments… as if I had nothing else to do with my time. Now to make the story short, the company in question abused their way buying reviews from bloggers whose blogs where not even near to being related to company’s industry. Google was fulled for a short time and company enjoyed great ranking and traffic. But things did not last that long. The company got spanked by Google and according to Alexa, the traffic declined after spanking as well.
photo credit: scottobearNot to my surprise, the website of the above mentioned company is “recommended” to Mahalo. I believe it is not the question if that page will be ever approved by one of the Mahalo “Guides”, it’s the question when. As long as that submission is there, even tough with nofollowed link, Mahalo will continue to remind me of a bad behaved and spiteful monkey. Bad monkeys get no banana.
I am planing to go to Boston, because I would like to learn more about my industry. But from what I hear that learning process is more fruitful when you talk to affiliates themselves. I do not mind to be challenged either. But I would rather listen to some one who knows a thing or two about affiliate marketing.