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.