Affiliate Window got an early start on spring cleaning by kicking more than 150 “bad publishers” off its rolls, according to a report on Performance Insider last week.
The mass ban came after repeated violations of the network’s terms and conditions, mainly for what the company is call including, “bad practices.”
In addition to the partner purge, Affiliate Window is also tightening up its standards for publishers to get up on its network in the first place. Performance Insider is reporting that the company is turned down as many as 30%-40% of all applications for new accounts.
So what exactly constitutes, “deceptive practices,” on Affiliate Window? For starters, they’re very serious about clamping down on the practice of providing customers with false information about sales that aren’t really happening (Affiliate window is primarily a retail site).
Here’s what the list of the offenses earned publishers the boot from Affiliate Window:
- 71% Deceptive Marketing Practices
- 14% PPC Violations
- 6% Multiple Accounts
- 5% Adware
- 4% Domain Squatting
Along with their pink slip, most of the offenders will also find their wallets are a little bit lighter this month. Affiliate Window is also withholding payments to the affiliate scofflaws.
Affiliate Window works pretty hard to keep their networks clean, they even charge a 5 Euro application fee, but that’s clearly not enough to deter some bad actors.
Performance Insider writer Michael Levanduski commented on the situation saying:
Affiliate Window does not tolerate any type of PPC violations, and this latest ‘firing’ of marketers shows that they take this type of thing seriously.
Though the mass firing might seem a bit severe, it actually protects the bulk of Affiliate Window publishers from a bigger threat, Google.
Matt Cutts and his webspam cronies have come down very hard on affiliate networks and publishers that stray into black hat territory. Earlier this year Cutts warned affiliates with, what he called, “thin content,” that he was ready to drop the hammer on them.
That warning was generally thought to be aimed at the adult affiliate industry, where content scraping and duplicate content use are pretty common. Nonetheless, that warning was something that affiliates in all verticals took, or should be taking, seriously.
Though determining exactly what constitutes black hat marketing or SEO can be challenging these days, affiliates are responsible for knowing the difference no matter what. (Though it sounds like the Affiliate Window rogues were clearly treading on the black hat side of the line.)