"Pages of product affiliation where the majority of the site is made for affiliation and contains a limited amount of original content or added value for users."

Also, the site may not comply with this policy: https://developers.google.com/search/docs/advanced/guideline...

"Sites that copy content from other sites, modify it slightly (for example, by substituting synonyms or using automated techniques), and republish it"

While I have seen much poorer quality affiliate sites than this ranking in Google, IMO this model is on borrowed time. I think the way to survive in this market is by increasing the value:affiliate ratio, and diversifying income sources, so affiliate revenue isn't the sole focus.

Ironically, I know of a scraper site that mirrors Amazon's bestsellers list, reformatted as blog posts: https://gistgear.com - and it's growing like gangbusters.

For now...

The site needs more focus. Make some actual recommendations and tell us why we should trust them. I think wirecutter has a good formula for this. I've bought several products after reading wirecutter articles.

I don't know if this has anything to do with google's algorithm, but it did actually feel to me that the site was coming close to the line between "here is some helpful information for you" versus "here are a lot of extra links that will help me get a little bit more revenue".

It's definitely something I'll keep in my toolbox.

As for "dramatically increase the word count, add more photos, add overviews of each product instead of just a single line or two pulled from reviews"... don't do this! If I wanted all that junk I'd just read the Amazon page. I agree that there is probably room to add a bit more information about the products without ruining what makes your site cool but don't abandon your vision.

Combine this with something like wirecutter that does vetted reviews (but probably looks at fewer products as a result) and it seems like a good complement.

Off-Label Usage - Customers rate a portable jump starter 5-stars, even though they have only used the product to charge their smartphones, not to jump start a vehicle.

Self Validation - Customers rate a carbon monoxide detector 5-stars because they feel a sense of relief and validation that their purchase will protect their families.

Customer Service Uprating - A 1-star rating is later updated to 4- or 5-stars because the manufacturer offers the customer a replacement product (and suggests altering the review).

Misunderstanding - A customer leaves a negative review because he or she didn't read the product description carefully and is consequently disappointed with the product.

Ideology or Spite - A positive review is paired with a negative rating because the customer disagrees with the business practices of the manufacturer (e.g. It's a great product, but Widget Corp. is a POLLUTER!).

Wrong Model - A review for one variation of a product is lumped in with reviews of another version of the product. (Hard drive failure rates can differ by 900% depending on the size of the drive.)

Wrong Product - A product page is repurposed by a seller, thereby mixing the reviews of one product with a completely different one. E.g. A page about a protective phone case contains reviews about a wireless charger.

Shipping Issues - Customers leave negative reviews because their packages arrived late or damaged in a way that reflects negatively on the shipping carrier, not the manufacturer.

Joke Reviews - A customer uses his or her review as a platform for comedy. Sexual wellness products, or those that are gender-based, seem to be disproportionately affected.

Empathy or Pity - A customer has a bad experience with a product, yet he or she leaves a positive rating (typically, 4-stars) because "someone" might like the product.

If the concept is to attract the 'satisficers' which by the way, i love that word and that book also, there needs to be some other kind of optimization on the pages. Going after 'best of' for everything looks spammy. And that spammyness is amplified by the lack of content when compared to the other sites ranking for the terms he's optimizing for.

There are other ways to attack this problem. Instead of having it be best of everything - it really should be a statistics site for popular products. Add in some kind of ranking system or some kind of kayak-like search and BOOM - new unique concept that provides real value to people. As the site is right now, its gimmicky, thin on content and is NOT going to rank in today's SERPs the way it is now. Sorry.

I agree that the spirit of my site is closer to "a statistics site for products" than a typical review site. Adding more content, photos, etc. may help to remedy my situation, but I would feel like I was abandoning my original purpose. I designed the site with "satisficers" in mind, i.e. allow people to make a decent decision as quickly as possible. No frills.

Until recently, I worked for product review sites like Anandtech and Tom's Hardware, and I'm not equipped to compete with them head on. My hope was to create a new niche by using data analysis, which is more of my skillset: https://www.johnwdefeo.com/articles/amazon-review-analysis

I could make the case that targeted paid search for low comp, buy ready keywords would work well. Your content is what would push someone over the edge to buy. If you think about it, your site is much further down the funnel than other affil sites because you've vetted reviews, instead of just copy/pasting/spinning from other sites. You should also retarget the people who come to those pages with ads specific to the products they're looking for urging them to "not make a decision without all the facts" which is what you've done by mining all of the review data.

I do very much like the approach and the original idea but sadly google likes what google likes. If deeper authoritative content is not what you want to be doing, that's fine, but you shouldn't have the expectation you are going to be able to compete with the big dogs who operate in that way.

Im happy to take this convo offline as you're getting a lot of weird advice in this thread that are just random people's opinions. Shoot me an email at [email protected] if you want to keep chatting.

https://www.goodcheapandfast.com/articles/best-noise-cancell...

https://www.goodcheapandfast.com/articles/best-gaming-keyboa...

I know Google says they are all about the algorithm, but I'm convinced they are relying heavy on manual review farms. Of course admitting it would damage their brand, and disincentivize people from coding "to their algorithm". But I'm pretty sure a manual reviewer thought "yep, spam site" and penalized it.

One other thing, the landing page is basically a search engine / portal. In my experience, google also hits everything in this category. (I built a small search engine for a specific vertical in the past - no longer online - and it too showed strange search behavior after a while.) Maybe replace the landing page with a blog / magazine like feed?

I skimmed a couple product categories that I've looked at recently, mainly gaming keyboards. The information felt a bit mediocre, but I also thought it did a pretty good job of picking out decent value products. I can see the value in it as a short list of products to look into, but there's not enough info for me to make a choice without leaving the site.

How much does image actually weigh in the site's score? What about the text only websites e.g. PG's essays, not including forums like HN. I would presume PG's blog has great backlink score but would a similar site with same number of backlinks but with several images rank more?(hoping for clarification from an anonymous Googler).

I'm asking this because my text only blog content titled 'Startup ideas vs Problems'[1] was the featured snippet when the search term is 'Startup ideas vs Problems'[2] until recently as the current featured snippet features another website with a featured image within the blog post.

Although my blog is still the first result, but google now suggests 'Did you mean: Startup ideas and Problems' which buries my blog post effectively killing my traffic.

[1]https://hitstartup.com/startup-ideas-vs-problems/

[2]https://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=Startup%20ideas%20vs%2...

There is no one silver bullet for SEO. Its many things combined.

It seems that thanks to this policy of Google most cooking/recipe sites are full of fluff. Not always 'more content' means the content.

I wonder if the same thing would work for you: organize your site with more content per page. You could add value with lists organized by some principle, or just borrow Amazon's catalog tree.

For that matter, would the same notion work for recipe sites? In addition to the main recipe per page, add several other related dishes -- compatible side dishes, similar main dishes, cocktails, etc. Reduce the blurb to please readers, but still produce content.

I'm far from an expert in SEO so I apologize if I'm telling you something you already know (or already know doesn't work). I'm just spitballing.

While this isn't necessarily bad to make money, it definitely doesn't do anything for a visitor.

After reading the blog post, I was expecting something like consumer reports or some intricate posts, but it's obviously little tid bits of information that looks like it was posted by some virtual assistant he was paying $2 per post or something.

This seems to be a common mistake on HN, and I point it out because you and others in this thread seem to have invested a fair amount of time in crafting a personal response to the author that may never actually be read by them.