Cafepress, Froogle and the PID of Doom

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I've recently been getting a few hits from Froogle - not many, 2 or 3 a day - but every little helps I thought.
But I've just been examining those links, and there's something rather curious about them.Look at this page.It's a search for the term - "Hug Me" T-shirt - on Froogle.....http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=%22Hug+Me%22+T-shirt&btnG=Search

(Note: the page is showing as I say at the time of posting - it may have changed if you're reading some time after.)

There's ten results in total.There's something from my shop in first position, and in fourth position too.

7 out of the ten results come from Cafepress,and three from elsewhere.I also show up at number one in the Froogle results at the top of a Google search....http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&q=%22Hug+Me%22+T-shirt&btnG=Search

Now the interesting thing is in the links from the Froogle results to my Cafepress shop.Here's the link - I've edited out the http : // www . bit so you can see it all.....

google.com/url?q=http://www.cafepress.com/the_daily_shirt.6262524%3Fr%3Dfroogle%26pid%3DXXXXXXX%26CMP%3DOTC:froogle&e=14815&fr=AHOVNg7xgXn5SbuqMznGjiVTUSvJBAxDHIt4fHaJ7a7dAAAAAAAAAAA&sa=X&oi=froogle&ct=result&cd=1

Did you notice that there's a PID in there? (I replaced the actual PID with XXXX - but you can see the real one on Froogle - it's the same one on all the links I looked at).

This means that Google, via Froogle, is making affiliate income from the clickthrough sales it generates.

This means that if someone comes to your shop through Froogle, it will be the Froogle affiliate cookie that will be set, and it will be they who earn any affiliate income from the visit.

So if you've spent time putting together affiliate pages in your shop, and the visitor comes from Froogle, then it's wasted effort.

This might not matter, in the wider scheme of things, as we can now regard Froogle as just another competitor for affiliate income and adjust our marketing strategies accordingly, except for these lines from Froogle's FAQ page....

"As with all other Google search results, Froogle ranks your results based on their
relevance to your search terms. Google does not accept payment for placement within our
actual search results, and the advertising that appears on Froogle search results pages is
always clearly identified as "Sponsored Links."

And also......

"Froogle's search results are automatically generated by our ranking software. Google
does not accept payment for inclusion of products in our search results, nor do we place
sellers' sites higher in our results if they're advertisers or offer to pay for that
placement."

Now they may not have, strictly speaking, violated those terms. It would rather depend on how
closely you want to associate the two worlds of advertising and affiliate marketing.

But it does seem a touch underhand to make money directly from click through affiliate sales,
and to keep quiet about it, especially when you're pretending that when it comes to
advertising, you're whiter than white.

As I've said before, in different words, but it's worth saying again....
Thank you Google for taking bread out of the mouths of the little people.
Do no evil?
Hmmmmm.
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There's a couple of things that should be checked up on.

If there's anyone reading this that has a Cafepress shop that's opted out of the marketplace
but is also listed on Froogle, could they check their Froogle listings and see if there's a
PID set in the links? It could be Froogle are making money from something you've opted out
of.

And the same goes for anyone with an off-site Cafepress shop listed with Froogle.
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And on a more general note, I'd noticed that affiliate income had gone down over recent
months. Now the big boys are getting involved, do you think we've hit the down slope of the
Supply/Demand curve?
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And a final thought.If Google are doing it today, Microsoft will be doing it in eighteen months time.
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