A leaked PDF from Google setting out guidelines for ‘quality raters’ when they’re doing handjobs on spam is doing the rounds on the Interweb. An interesting 43 page read albeit with no real bombshells. Had to laugh though when they were describing thin affiliates around page 35:
Recognizing thin affiliates
Clicking on a “More Information” or “Make a Purchase” button takes you to a merchant on a different
domain.
Right-clicking on an image on the page with your mouse and looking at “Properties” shows you that the
image has a different URL than the URL of the page. This indicates that the image originates from the
other merchant’s site.
Example of a thin affiliate: http://findmeatune.com/artist-Pink
This is an Amazon thin affiliate. Looking at the properties of the images on the page reveals that they
originate from amazon.com.
There is no value added (e.g. reviews, price comparison) on the page, and the value of the page is only in
the link to the merchant’s site.
You cannot complete a transaction from the thin affiliate’s site.
This site belongs to an Irish blogger in my feed that I’d never expect to be a spammer, but what Google says is gospel, eh? 🙂
Full PDF here if interested