The holiday shopping season, ushered in by Black Friday and Cyber Monday, is not only a critical SEO period for e-commerce sites but also for news publishers who have affiliate sections focused on product reviews and shopping deals. More and more news publications looking to diversify and expand revenue streams have turned to such content which contain affiliate links that can provide a surprising amount of revenue. The best of these affiliate sites are managed by news publisher staff members, don’t run afoul of Google’s site reputation abuse guidelines, and provide unbiased, in-depth, hands-on product reviews and curated deals by shopping experts.

Some websites who have tried to game the Google algorithm have experienced significant visibility declines. As we were wrapping up this analysis, Google made a significant update to its site reputation abuse policy, which now states: “Site reputation abuse is the practice of publishing third-party pages on a site in an attempt to abuse search rankings by taking advantage of the host site’s ranking signals.”

Today we shared an update to our site reputation abuse policy. See our blog post for more details on what changed and why:https://t.co/cLm3vzhtvR

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) November 19, 2024

Here’s what news publishers need to know about Google’s updated policy for affiliate sites:

• More news publishers will now be in violation of the site reputation abuse policy, even if they provide editorial oversight of their affiliate content. Per Google: “We’re making it clear that using third-party content on a site in an attempt to exploit the site’s ranking signals is a violation of this policy — regardless of whether there is first-party involvement or oversight of the content.”  Google goes on to say that “no amount of first-party involvement alters the fundamental third-party nature of the content or the unfair, exploitative nature of attempting to take advantage of the host’s sites ranking signals.”
• News publishers should prepare for declines in search visibility from their affiliate sections. Google will now treat some affiliate sites or affiliate sub-sections of larger sites as “standalone” sites, meaning they won’t automatically get a ranking boost by being associated with a main site’s reputation. This will likely result in an immediate decline in Google visibility. Google says this isn’t a direct violation of its Site Reputation Abuse Policy: “It means we’re measuring them independently, even if they are located within a site.”
• What action steps should news publishers with affiliate content take? First, review the data. Has your site been hit with a spam manual action by Google or does it appear that your affiliate section is now being treated as an independent site? Follow the guidelines if your affiliate site receives a spam manual action. If your affiliate site is now being treated as a standalone site, implement SEO best practices to boost visibility while avoiding violations of the updated Site Reputation Abuse Policy.

Here are the Google visibility trends we are seeing on the Trisolute News Dashboard as we enter the holiday shopping season. Data is from the Nov. 1-Nov. 15, 2024 time period on the US SERPs and is for the top 10 publishers filtered by a Black Friday-focused keyword cluster.

Top Stories News Box 

A look at the competitive mobile and desktop SERPs for the first half of November 2024 for Black Friday deals content.

• Yahoo demonstrated the greatest overall visibility on the mobile and desktop Google SERP.
• Tom’s Guide had a strong second-place performance on both mobile and desktop SERP rankings for the top keyword “Black Friday” with Amazon deals content being the top performer.
• “Early Black Friday deals” was a top-performing keyword on mobile and desktop.
• Xbox deals performed well for Reddit on both mobile and desktop.

Video Box rankings

YouTube:

• YouTube ranked in first place for Video Box rankings on mobile and desktop for deals-related keywords. Today.com ranked second in visibility rankings for the mobile and desktop SERPs. TikTok earned a respectable third-place performance on mobile, demonstrating the growing search strength of this platform.
• YouTube owned topic authority on mobile and desktop video rankings for the highly competitive keyword “Black Friday” with a variety of videos from influencers, such as Alaina Nicole.

Other noteworthy findings

Organic: 

• For organic search rankings on Google, the Amazon price tracker website camelcamelcamel.com owned topic authority for the keyword “price drop” and also performed well for the keyword “lowest price” on both the mobile and desktop SERPs.
• Amazon owned topic authority for the keyword “deals” on both the mobile and desktop SERPs.
• Half of the top 10 performing websites in organic rankings on the mobile and desktop SERPs for the deals keyword set are coupon and discount code sites.
• Lowes was the only other brand besides Amazon to appear in the top 10 for organic visibility.

Visual Digest:  

• YouTube earned the most visual digest rankings, followed by Amazon. 
• Local TV news affiliates were found in the mix of YouTube visual digest rankings.
• For the keyword “Black Friday” products like Olight World and influencers such as Alaina Nicole and Jennifer Lynn dominated in YouTube rankings. 
• Best Buy owned topic authority for the keyword “Cyber Monday” while for both Best Buy and YouTube, Cyber Monday content was outperforming Black Friday in visual digest rankings.

With or without author: 

• On the mobile SERP, about 20 percent of articles had an author; on the desktop SERP, about 25 percent of articles had an author.

Google Discover:  Based on a review of affiliate content from several top US news publishers.

• Beauty product reviews and deals overperformed for multiple news publishers.
• Early Black Friday deals generated the most impressions and clicks.
• Which stores are open and closed on Thanksgiving and Black Friday, and store return policies performed well on Discover.
• Amazon, Walmart, and Target are the main store brands generating impressions and clicks on Discover.

Case Study: Tom’s Guide

An analysis of the winning SEO strategies Tom’s Guide has implemented for their Black Friday deals articles.

We noticed that Tom’s Guide is a top performer in Google visibility rankings on both the mobile and desktop SERPs for the deals keyword cluster we’re tracking for Black Friday. We took a closer look at their Black Friday content from a SEO perspective and here are our top takeaways. 

• Use a live article format even for their pre-Black Friday content.
• Headlines feature first-person pronouns to signal a unique personal perspective. Other top-performing sites like TechRadar and Yahoo are also using a similar first-person headline structure.
• Lack of ads on their Black Friday sales articles makes for an uncluttered, distraction-free user experience.
• The introduction is fairly short and then gets right to the deals.
• Contains a handy table of contents in the right rail for easy access to the hottest deal categories.

Black Friday SEO tips for news publishers:

• Target a group of keywords and add those to your SEO tool. Be prepared to refresh those keywords throughout the day as developments warrant. In the Trisolute News Dashboard, you can create keyword clusters for this purpose, which can then be used to filter report results throughout the tool. If you are a niche publication, in addition to the most popular keywords, consider targeting a second-tier set of keywords that may be less competitive and give your publication a better chance at Google visibility rankings. 
• For Google Discover, focus on entities to surface performance insights. The Discover report in the Trisolute News Dashboard allows publishers to build entity clusters for research purposes. Analyzing Google Discover data may give your team insights into related topics that audiences are interested in beyond deals and product reviews. For example, our News Dashboard analysis found that how-to articles providing tips on how to use a popular product performed well on Discover. As we pointed out above, doing an explainer on return policies for major stores could prove to be a helpful and popular resource. Better yet if the author of the article has personal experience and can provide insightful tips on how to navigate the process.
• Local TV news affiliates are appearing quite frequently in YouTube’s Video Box rankings for Black Friday keywords. If you are a local news provider with Black Friday video content, make sure it’s optimized for YouTube. 
• There are mixed opinions on the importance of author pages for SEO. Our research finds that only about 20-25 percent of Black Friday deals articles for the top 10 publishers had author citations, so while not a requirement, author bios can showcase subject expertise and reinforce brand reliability.
• News publishers are leaning into the first-person experience that Google wants and more are using “I” and other first-person pronouns in the headline. As more publishers copy this trend, consider other creative ways you can inject personal experience into headlines for shopping content.
• Consider staffing resources when making a decision about live blogging. To be successful, the live blog will require at least hourly updates to remove expired deals or out-of-stock items.
• Cross-link all of your relevant Black Friday content to maximize search visibility. If your CMS supports topical lists, it may be as simple as tagging all of your content for Black Friday. A table of contents at the top of the page with a link to your best Black Friday deals content can also be a helpful user resource.
• Google has been experimenting with AI Overviews for e-commerce content with an array of various SERP designs. Be prepared for the unexpected.
• To counteract the potential impact of AI overviews in Google’s Black Friday SERP reducing the visibility of news publishers’ affiliate content, leverage your other content distribution channels. Coordinate with the audience team to promote content across your publication’s social media channels and newsletters. Explore additional opportunities, such as Reddit and WhatsApp, but be mindful of best practices for posting.
• When assessing affiliate content search performance, news publishers should look beyond the Top Stories News Box and ensure they are capturing data from other Google ranking types, including Discover and organic, to ensure an accurate analysis.

Not yet part of the Trisolute News Dashboard family? Request your FREE demo today and find out how your articles rank on Google Discover, Google News and the SERPs!