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Last week, Commission Junction announced their Link Management Initiative, Phase I. A notice in the Advertiser side of things at CJ.com indicated that this is “a program which will make it easier for you to get the most out of your publisher relationships.”

According to the announcement, this initiative will be released in multiple phases, with Phase I launching on June 23, 2006.

Forums and blogs quickly lit up on the issue with all sorts of hysterical notions and speculations. The item that got everybody worked up was that CJ will be updating their link code to JavaScript.

Pundits and pontificators quickly took one part fact and mixed it with three parts speculation on this issue. The result was an industry whipped up in a frenzy. There are FAQs that spell out lots of the details when advertisers and publishers log into CJ, but most of the “coverage” I read didn’t bother with technicalities like contacting CJ with their questions or reading the FAQs to get basic answers.

I’d say the post that most perfectly capsulated the whole situation was one from Scott Jangro when he wrote:

Lighten the f$%@ up.

It’ll be ok. Really.

CJ will be addressing the Link Management Initiative on the new CJU Online Podcast Series. The first podcast in the series takes place Tuesday, May 30 at 3 p.m. EDT.

I’m curious to hear what they have to say about the whole issue. According to the FAQ, “the industry standard is moving towards JavaScript links.” Time will tell whether CJ’s Link Management Initiative is an example of affiliate marketing 2.0 or affiliate marketing beta.

I wrote about some Google News a couple of days ago - it seems Google is spelling out to affiliates which sorts of “common forms of deceptive or manipulative behavior” to avoid if they hope to be indexed.

The whole issue comes down to whether an affiliate adds value to the Google search results.

Anyhow, I’ve since received the following from an individual who claimed to be on the Google payroll to sniff out “thin affiliate” techniques.

I was one of those Google search quality folk. It’s not clear in your article, so I thought I should pass on that the search quality team do not, and do not cause, any sites to be manually removed from Google. Their efforts are purely to help the engineers tweak the algorithm to stop such pages appearing.

As a super-affiliate, and a frequent searcher, I applaud Google’s approach.

In general…Thin Affiliate Doorway Pages are basically spam, they are made by folk seeking a quick buck from as little effort as possible, they add nothing to the experience of web searchers, they don’t help merchants, and they tend to use black hat SEO techniques.

Although I do well from Thin Affiliate Doorway Pages myself, I’d rather they all disappeared, and all affiliates were forced to be really useful to merchants and consumers.

He requested anonymity, as he said he is still working with them. Interesting stuff - just more mystery into that elusive Google algorithm.

Do you think that affiliate programs must have 24/7 support? And if so, what is the biggest benefit for the ones that do, for the ones that don’t?

I was not aware that any affiliate programs were offering 24/7 support to affiliates. In fact, I don’t recall any e-commerce sites (they may well be some) that offer such support to customers, either.

The reason being that there is not demand for such service. I’ve been availing myself as an affiliate manager seven days a week to affiliates for years. There haven’t been any emergencies to date.

Plenty of routine questions that were answered in off business hours.

If you were to offer such a service, I think it would be worth highlighting to your affiliates. But if you pay staff to wait for issues overnight, how long will you give it before you determine it’s not the best use of resources?

And are you willing to be woken up by a call at 3 AM from an affiliate halfway across the world that is wondering if you can make then a 300×250 graphic for their blog?

I don’t think 24/7 support is an issue out there, but better support in general is needed by most affiliate programs. Take a look at your FAQ - are the questions in there actually those that are frequently asked?

Create an affiliate resource site to provide tools and resources for affiliates, as well as an affiliate sales guide that gives an overview of your target audience, company history, products/services, etc.

It’s also helpful to provide sample creative, your PPC bidding policy for affiliates, and a copy of your affiliate agreement in a place that is readily accessible by affiliates.

And consider starting up a blog for your affiliates to communicate the latest news about your affiliate program.

It was nearly a year ago the AssociatePrograms.com newsletter shared a report indicating that Google employs people at a rate of $10 to $20 an hour to check search results at Google every day.

Back then, it was big news that Google apparently had a criteria guide which identified some sites in their results as “Thin Affiliate Doorway Pages.”

Some affiliates were in an uproar that Google would dare enforce some quality control over their results pages.

Earlier this week, Peter Figueredo wrote on ReveNews how Google recently updated their Quality Guidelines to include language geared to affiliates.

The new guidelines for quality Google results instruct Webmasters to adhere to a number of best practices, including:

• Avoid “doorway” pages created just for search engines, or other “cookie cutter” approaches such as affiliate programs with little or no original content.

• If your site participates in an affiliate program, make sure that your site adds value. Provide unique and relevant content that gives users a reason to visit your site first.

Sounds like the “thin affiliates” are going on a strict diet of organic traffic this summer.

Predictably, some affiliates are up in arms. But why?

As far as I am concerned, any affiliate site that doesn’t add value should be removed from both Google and the respective affiliate programs it promotes. Nobody is entitled to placement in Google and the traffic that comes with being indexed.

The sticking point is exactly what does Google consider to be value?

There is a new service from See Fusion Search Marketing that enables eBay affiliates to put up ads on their site that relate to the content on their pages.

Think eBay meets Google AdSense.

The contextual advertising system is called fyiAds, and according to Winston Williams, President of See Fusion Search Marketing, “fyiAds is like putting the eBay affiliate program on steroids.”

“We’ve made these ads so targeted and so relevant to the content of just about any Web page, that I think most publishers of Web content that try our system are going to be amazed at the revenue that fyiAds is going to generate for them,” continued Williams.

In order to use fyiAds, affiliates must first join the eBay affiliate program and then create fyiAd code.

fyiAds can be created in the following sizes:

• Leaderboard (728×90)

• Banner (468×60)
• Half Banner (234×60)
• Skyscraper (120×600)
• Wide Skyscraper (160×600)
• Vertical Banner (120×240)
• Large Rectangle (336×280)
• Medium Rectangle (300×250)
• Small Rectangle (180×150)
• Square (250×250)
• Small Square (125×125)

More details at http://www.find-your-item.com/ad.

Eric Mattson is an American marketer living is Stockholm, Sweden, and he has a big plan. He’s planning to conduct 1,000 podcasted interviews of marketers, innovators, entrepreneurs and other interesting people.

I was the subject of his 25th podcast, and naturally we chatted about affiliate marketing.

My conversation with Eric covered how the affiliate business has changed over the last 10 years, what affiliates should look for when signing up for affiliate programs, big trends in the affiliate industry right now, and some affiliate marketing resources.

Listen to the podcast at MarketingMonger.com.

Toys “R” Us will be terminating its e-commerce and merchandising agreement with Amazon.com by June 30 of this year. Then on July 1, they start up a multi-year deal with GSI Commerce.

This has affiliate marketing pundits guessing which affiliate network will be the new home for the Toys “R” Us affiliate program.

Earlier this month, Scott Jangro pointed out that DicksSportingGoods is moving over to LinkShare from Be Free. And Dicks is one of the e-commerce sites run by GSI Commerce.

Jangro commented “Given that they (GSI) left CJ for Be Free years ago and mass-moved about 30 properties, it only stands to reason that they won’t go back.”

So the assumption out there is that affiliate programs run by GSI Commerce will be following DicksSportingGoods over to LinkShare as their Be Free deals expire.

If that happens, it looks like Toys “R” Us may well return to LinkShare, where their affiliate program resided years ago before they inked their deal with Amazon.

This could be a hot, sticky affiliate marketing summer.