Moose on the Loose

The blog title is not my own heading but extracted from a quote I read on the A4UForum.

I have just returned from yet another family holiday in Portugal, hence why there has been a shortage of blog entries recently. (Who said thank goodness for that in the background?) So to catch up on things, one of my first ports of call is naturally the A4U Affiliate Forum along with blogs from some friends.

Upon reading the forum, Keith Budden, a respected affiliate, pointed out the terms & conditions of a particular merchant, Ocean Finance on one of the networks.

“ZERO TOLERANCE for any web pages appearing in natural listings via the Ocean brand or derivates thereof “

Basically meaning you cannot mention the name “Ocean Finance” in any html on your site, whether copy or meta tags or allow that page to be indexed in a search engine.

As Duncan quite rightly says & suggests “Insane policy – absolutely insane – one of the craziest things I’ve ever heard … this isn’t a merchant, its a paronoid delusionist. Personally I’d like to see the merchant suspended until this is resolved, its unenforceable, short-sighted and shows a complete lack of understanding as to how the internet works.”

Unfortunately, this has a whiff of the old Interflora program all over again, which some may recall. However, it’s also indicative to the extreme how more & more restrictive terms & conditions are generally being applied & imposed upon affiliates and how networks tolerate it to appease the merchant rather than the affiliate.

Here is the old Interflora thread

That Interflora thread is over 3 years old, yet similar problems are still happening & lessons are not being learned.

I had always thought that affiliate marketing was meant to be a synergy between affiliate, network & merchant & that the affiliate in some aspects was an extension of a merchants online sales force … and not to obstruct an affiliate with unnecessary hurdles to jump over & hoops to jump through.
Anyhow, If we looked closely enough at all programs on all networks, more will probably surface, whereby some of the legal jargon used in additional T&C’s would require a solictor to interpret. Therefore these type of programs tend to be automatically dumped in the bin along with any others who adopt a draconian attitude.

Now, when searching “ocean finance” on Google UK, yields about 298,000 results. Somehow, this will be a difficult one to enforce.By the way have you viewed their site via a firefox browser, talk about compatibility problems. Very amateur.

A forum member amusingly wrote “I was sitting by the Ocean thinking about a homeowner loan and wondering which finance company to go with … I chose this one – Get enough links to the page and you’ll be no.1 for Ocean Finance Homeowner Loans”

All in all this clearly demonstrates, by the merchant (or a party which is considered to giving them poor advice), a fine blend of arrogance & ignorance of how the internet & search engines work or how to run an effective affiliate program.

Their so called updated policy wasn’t really any different.

“ZERO TOLERANCE for any web pages appearing in natural listings via the Ocean brand or derivates thereof (logo images are available and must be used).”

Ocean Finance has probably made a rod for it’s own back and if blogged enough, well, you can guess may get indexed well in search engines & unless the policy is changed, the program will close in due course.

Last months Donkey of the Month Award definitely went to ASOS www.asos.com . This month definitely goes to Ocean Finance www.oceanfinance.co.uk

Congratulations … Eeyore … The Fools.

Suggestion: Avoid the program & move on. There are alternative programs to choose from.

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 15th, 2007 at 9:59 PM and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.