The End of Product Review-based Niche Websites, or not?

[Ahmed71]

Those who're affiliate marketers here, are might aware of a couple of updates google dropped regarding the authenticity of product reviews/listicles. For years, these had been the main $-driving contents of the websites, but these updates kinda flead marketers away from creating those contents in bulk.

Eventually, they moved on to more knowledge-based, informative or problem-solving content and started leaning towards display advertising. Unlike money articles, you can actually stuff display ads in such informative articles as you don't have the fear of losing your conversion rate.

Meanwhile, two sets of events took place-

• Amazon came up with several trims of affiliate commission rates.
• Platforms like Ezoic came up which is easier to enroll and offers way better CPM(ePMV) compared to good old AdSense.

As a result, people are obviously dropping off review-heavy models and embracing informative-heavy content strategy. Eventually, if google becomes more serious about the policy changes with review contents, no one would dare go that avenue. And by the end of the day, it's about revenue, which ezoic/mediavine/adthrive are providing more if not equal anyway.

So, do you think in the future this will be an end of product-review-based affiliate marketing model? Especially for SEO-driven content websites?

 

[Ryuzaki]

Unlike money articles, you can actually stuff display ads in such informative articles as you don't have the fear of losing your conversion rate.

I've never had a drop in conversion rate from having ads in my review articles. I feared I would but tested it and the data told me otherwise.

Amazon came up with several trims of affiliate commission rates.

Yeah, Amazon's compounding commission rate cuts made me not care about Amazon at all. I still use it and will recommend products here and there, but I don't bother with review posts any more.

So, do you think in the future this will be an end of product-review-based affiliate marketing model? Especially for SEO-driven content websites?

No. I think that many of the not-so-serious players will look for the path or least resistance, and it won't be review articles any more as you're saying. Solopreneurs and small teams looking to hit scale won't focus on it either. And what that's doing is lowering the competition along with raising the barrier to entry.

People willing to put in the work are going to have a field day and make a lot of money. The risk levels are definitely increasing for product reviews though since it's a zero sum game in the SERPs and it's going to be stuffed with bigger players producing high quality content.

 

[Ahmed71]

I've never had a drop in conversion rate from having ads in my review articles. I feared I would but tested it and the data told me otherwise.

Awesome. Can I know which ad network you use? Do you go revenue-focused or UI-focused? Cause I've seen many(including myself) to keep the top money articles off the ads and make better use of above-the-fold content.

Yeah, Amazon's compounding commission rate cuts made me not care about Amazon at all. I still use it and will recommend products here and there, but I don't bother with review posts any more.

Same here. Have been trying to blend product recommendations as a part of the story/solution/knowledge as we write informative content. And found out it actually works. In sites like this, I'm getting about 5-7% conversion rate.

No. I think that many of the not-so-serious players will look for the path or least resistance, and it won't be review articles any more as you're saying. Solopreneurs and small teams looking to hit scale won't focus on it either. And what that's doing is lowering the competition along with raising the barrier to entry.

People willing to put in the work are going to have a field day and make a lot of money. The risk levels are definitely increasing for product reviews though since it's a zero sum game in the SERPs and it's going to be stuffed with bigger players producing high quality content.

Can't agree more. At some point, those who really can stretch enough to create legit reviews will be all over the SERP.

Thanks for making all these points. This is my first post in BuSo.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Awesome. Can I know which ad network you use? Do you go revenue-focused or UI-focused? Cause I've seen many(including myself) to keep the top money articles off the ads and make better use of above-the-fold content.

I'm a Mediavine guy. I go revenue-focused. I'm here for the money. I do keep ads from above the fold on the review posts simply because I have a big comparison table up there that stops ads from loading there anyways (based on the <div> selection).

The thing is, the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) got together with Google and a bunch of others and did a bunch of measurements about what hurts user experience or not. I push it right to the limit of what they consider acceptable to maximize revenue.

 

[fstopeight]

Two things...
1- The worse strategy is one. One big client. One affiliate network, etc. There's not only Amazon out there, there's a LOT more.
2- It's not EITHER review OR info, it's a ratio. Matt Diggity was hit and he recovered his portfolio just with adding info content to the affiliate stuff (still the bulk). He should have a video about this somewhere.

 

[Ahmed71]

The worse strategy is one. One big client. One affiliate network, etc. There's not only Amazon out there, there's a LOT more.

Agreed. Diversification is the key, no matter it's traffic, monetization or even clients.

It's not EITHER review OR info, it's a ratio. Matt Diggity was hit and he recovered his portfolio just with adding info content to the affiliate stuff (still the bulk). He should have a video about this somewhere.

Well, that was how the industry was going up until 2022. A mix of review and info. After a couple of google product review updates, it's being risky to even touch product reviews. The authenticity and credibility google is asking product reviewers to portray, are not even closely possible for most of us affiliates. Maybe Google isn't super strict about it now, but they will be, in near future.

 

[axibert]

Well, that was how the industry was going up until 2022. A mix of review and info. After a couple of google product review updates, it's being risky to even touch product reviews. The authenticity and credibility google is asking product reviewers to portray, are not even closely possible for most of us affiliates. Maybe Google isn't super strict about it now, but they will be, in near future.

The big review sites have already adjusted to the recent update with making their stock images unique with some editing and they seem to be doing fine.

But what I found is it is getting harder to rank for broader terms with pages that are targeting review keywords. Less and less actual review sites are showing on page 1 for those terms that were previously dominated by review content. Could be a change of search intent, but considering what Google is doing with their own product comparisons it might just be pushing review content more and more into the longtail.

 

[harrytwatter]

Anyone seen any turnaround on sites that were hit with the product review update after implementing some of these things like edited images, review process guidelines etc?

 

[Execute]

I've never had a drop in conversion rate from having ads in my review articles. I feared I would but tested it and the data told me otherwise.

In your own experience, did you find this affecting rankings? I mean putting ads on review pages with affiliate links.

I know you've said it didn't affect conversions. But did it affect rankings over time as far as you could tell?

Asking 'cos I've heard it said that Google doesn't like pages that have display ads in addition to affiliate links, as it feels it's over monetization.

 

[Ryuzaki]

In your own experience, did you find this affecting rankings? I mean putting ads on review pages with affiliate links.

I know you've said it didn't affect conversions. But did it affect rankings over time as far as you could tell?

Asking 'cos I've heard it said that Google doesn't like pages that have display ads in addition to affiliate links, as it feels it's over monetization.

While it's impossible to say for sure, I don't feel like having ads on pages with affiliate links reduced my ranks nor did it seem to make it more difficult to rank them. When I added them I didn't see any fluctuations in ranking at all. Everything just carried on like normal except I made more money.

 

[Execute]

While it's impossible to say for sure, I don't feel like having ads on pages with affiliate links reduced my ranks nor did it seem to make it more difficult to rank them. When I added them I didn't see any fluctuations in ranking at all. Everything just carried on like normal except I made more money.

That's very interesting, thanks for the info. Adding display ads could easily increase an affiliate site's income by another 30% or more depending on the niche, so it's great to see that you can do this without significant impact on rankings. (Of course I'm sure exercising commonsense in putting the ads is important, not overdoing it).

Will definitely try it out on my site when it picks up rankings again, and will come give feedback on my own experience here on this page.