When Merchants Lose the Plot
July 25th, 2006 by Michael Gray in SEOIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
The following is an part of an updated merchant TOS I got this week, talk about losing the plot …
Partner agrees that it shall not use trademark
and registered names in the title or body text of any listing,whether
paid for or not, which will cause affiliate’s listing to return at the
top of a query string when user is searching on <snip> trademark,
registered or personality names is also not permitted. (example:
Froogle Google). Partner understands Product Partners and <snip>
will not pay commissions to an affiliate who breaches this agreement.
I get not wanting your affiliates to outrank you for your product, but I think you would want them backing you up instead of say your competitors or people saying less than favorable things about you …
Sphere It
July 25th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
That does sound a bit heavy handed. Most of the T’s & C’c that I’ve read just don’t want you to copy the look and feel of the Merchant website and create some sort of a Phishing website.
I can understand the Merchant not wanting affiliates to bid on the Brand Name. Many merchants assume that this type of prospect is on their way to make a purchase anyway and letting Affiliates bid on the Brand Name can create a situation where you’re just paying for traffic that would normally be free. It doesn’t take a genius to set up a PPC campaign for your own brand either.
No one wants to leave any money on the table but… It’s a slippery slope.
If the Affiliate Manager does enough research in the blogs, forums and attends all the conferences like SES and the Affiliate Summit, they can eventually learn where all the low hanging fruit is and remove it.
I wouldn’t recommend this approach unless you’re trying to shut down your affiliate program.
A Merchant with a good affiliate program should be very cautious about these things. You don’t want to go too far and eliminate all of the opportunities or you’ll have no affiliates. People aren’t stupid. They’ll just move on to where the opportunities are.
There needs to be some money on the table or no one will want to play your stupid game.