Last month, Google’s Site Reputation Abuse update sent shockwaves throughout the affiliate space, as the search giant seemingly went beyond its initial plans, annihilating nearly the entire industry of third-party coupon sites/pages from its SERPs overnight.
Back in March, Google announced that it would be removing certain sites/pages of this type from search results, but only the ones that were not ‘actively involved’ with the brands and partners they worked with. This disclaimer set a lot of publishers at ease, as they argued that they have always kept up proper, legitimate practices and have been closely involved with their partners.
The arrival of this wipeout, then, came as a surprise blow to the companies affected.
At the time, we heard from Global Savings Group (GSG) and VoucherCodes.co.uk. But we didn’t hear from Savings United, amongst other publishers. While GSG was very vocal about the update, Savings United was noticeably quiet.
