Google rebranded its Performics affiliate network, which it acquired as part of Doubleclick, as “Google Affiliate Network,” apparently sometime over the past few days.
I say “apparently” because I can’t find any actual Google press release on the subject. It was blogounced, apparenty: Announced on Performics’ blog, and possibly a few key blogs, like TC and a few others, were told about it, or possibly they just noticed that all of a sudden, Google had a page for the “Google Affiliate Network.” Look, I love blogs, but we’re not that good.
Interestingly, Danny at SEL has not weighed in. He’d be the first one I’d want to hear from if there was really news, given his deep understanding of the search-driven affiliate marketplace, which quite honestly is fascinating, but a saddled with the kind of kharmic weirdness often associated with the domain industry. (They are kissing cousins, in a way…)
Anyway, there’s probably no official Google release because, as far as I can tell, there’s nothing to talk about. This is a very quiet trial balloon. There’s not word one about anything that might actually change in the Performics blog post. Well, OK, there’s this:
Within the next couple of weeks you will see some exciting changes to the user interface reflecting the new brand.
To call this a new coat of paint would be to overstate the facts.
Now, were it to decide it wanted to, could Google change the affiliate marketplace in ways untold? Heck yes, it could. Is it? Nope. Not yet anyway.
John-
Long time lurker here, Just wanted to chime in here and first say thanks for your innovative work here on this blog, and on the web in general, its been fun listening in the last few years.
and second I am with you on the lack of good feedback on this release by Google. As a part time affiliate manager I was very excited to hear this news. A seamless package of Admanager/Affiliate/Analytics is a very potent setup and overall time saver (most affiliate networks are a real pain to work through).
My guess is the big players are still a little concerned about how much info they are going to commit to the Almighty G if they go with this package.
I could see Small business owners who are already running some adword campaigns jumping on the chance to do one time or short term affiliate offers (and gain a little link juice while their at it), without having to commit to a large term contact/rates.
-T
Trevor brings up a good point — namely: Are Google’s results influenced by the ads place on a page in its network (or, indeed, on any page in its index)?
If so, then it seems like searching Google is becoming more and more like standing in the middle of a big department store wondering where to find the exit.
Very interesting..but Google Affiliate Network has a long way to go to catchup to CJ in this space.