Again within the day, I ran a few semi-successful affiliate web sites. I even as soon as ranked #1 for “greatest protein powder.” This was a fairly profitable key phrase given its industrial intent and excessive search quantity.
Ever since then, the thought of beginning one other affiliate web site and getting critical about it has at all times been behind my thoughts. I’ve simply by no means had the time resulting from my everyday work at Ahrefs.
However as we speak? I don’t assume I’d begin one even when I had the time. It simply isn’t price it.
Loads of different on-line entrepreneurs appear to be echoing this sentiment recently, too.
Under are 4 explanation why I really feel like this and wouldn’t begin a pure affiliate web site in 2025.
Reddit appears to rank within the prime 5 for just about each affiliate key phrase these days.
That is even the case with YMYL key phrases:
And the issue is barely getting worse…
When Google just lately penalized the affiliate directories of many huge publications like CNN Underscored, it overwhelmingly gave that visitors to Reddit—not impartial publishers. I do know this as a result of we studied it.
How? We checked out 6,179 key phrases that declined or had been utterly misplaced for the directories under between November 18th and November twenty fifth:
https://www.wsj.com/buyside/https://reviewed.usatoday.com/www.impartial.co.uk/advisorwww.thesun.co.uk/procuring/www.forbes.com/advisor/www.newsweek.com/vault/www.cnn.com/cnn-underscored/
We then used the Visitors Share by Area report in Key phrases Explorer to see which websites get essentially the most visitors from these key phrases. Reddit was #1, taking 6% of visitors.
On condition that 51% of Reddit threads rating for product evaluate key phrases have spam as the highest remark (as per Glen Allsopp’s unbelievable analysis), this can be a fairly dire state of affairs. For many product evaluate key phrases, there’s virtually at all times a distinct segment affiliate web site extra deserving of rating than Reddit.
For instance, take a time period like “greatest air air purifier for cigarette smoke.” Reddit ranks in place #2, however the thread is a complete spamfest.
The highest remark seems straight from ChatGPT:
The second seems like a disguised product pitch:
The third once more seems like a ChatGPT particular:
Now you would argue that almost all affiliate websites aren’t any higher—and I’d agree. However there are additionally loads of area of interest web site homeowners who make investments closely of their content material, spend numerous hours really testing merchandise, and truly need to rank.
For instance, take a web site like HouseFresh which ranks #6 for a similar question.
The blokes behind this web site completely check each product they suggest:
But when we take all of the key phrases this web site ranks within the prime 10 for, plug them into Ahrefs’ Key phrases Explorer and examine the Visitors Share by Area report, we see that Google continues to be sending Reddit extra visitors.
Given the deal Google just lately made with Reddit to make use of their content material to coach its AI fashions, this pattern in all probability isn’t going to vary any time quickly.
Be actual: are you actually looking Google for product suggestions as of late? I infrequently do. I simply go straight to YouTube…
Now clearly, we’re entrepreneurs. We all know that many of the prime Google outcomes are sometimes spammy and shouldn’t be trusted. However what about everybody else?
I don’t have information on this, however I’ve seen mainstream YouTubers speaking about it numerous instances.
For instance, this video on why Google search is falling aside has 3.7 million views. In it, he talks about how looking for the very best merchandise is pointless due to how horrible Google outcomes are for product searches.
It’s acquired to a stage now the place looking for the very best of mainly something is pointless. Virtually each single article is a prime 10 of merchandise not chosen primarily based on their advantage however in reality simply whether or not or not they’ll get a kickback whenever you purchase them. […] I assure that a big slice of those articles are written with the author not really having purchased and examined all 10 merchandise themselves.
I believe there are three important explanation why the outcomes are so dangerous:
The inflow of AI spam. Ever since ChatGPT and generative AI got here on the scene, it’s turn out to be tremendous simple and low cost to create affiliate content material. Google appears to be struggling to filter out this spam at scale.Parasite search engine marketing. That is the place entrepreneurs reap the benefits of the authority of a longtime web site to rank for aggressive key phrases. It’s why we’ve been seeing websites like Forbes, CNN, and WSJ outranking impartial websites for issues they’ve completely no experience in, like “greatest monetary advisors.”Google rating Reddit. Most of those threads are spamfests as I discussed above.
For my part, these three causes are additionally interconnected…
Google handled the inflow of AI spam by boosting the search presence of massive manufacturers that it thought it may belief. These manufacturers then took benefit of Google’s favouritism to rank for phrases the place that they had no experience. Google then responded to criticism concerning the lack of range in search outcomes (principally from the search engine marketing {industry}) by selling user-generated content material on Reddit.
After all, it’s nonetheless doable to advertise affiliate hyperlinks elsewhere like TikTok or YouTube—however that’s an entire totally different kettle of fish.
When Glen Allsopp analyzed 10,000 product evaluate search outcomes, he discovered that solely 4 of the highest 100 rating domains have been impartial websites. The remaining have been a part of information organisations, public firms or giant web site networks.
Even worse, 36 of the highest 100 rating domains have been owned by simply three totally different firms: Hearst, Dotdash Meredith, and Future.
I don’t assume that is going to get higher anytime quickly both…
Trying extra intently at our analysis on affiliate publication drops, the websites reaping the largest rewards alongside Reddit have been all additionally huge names, like Amazon, Enterprise Insider, and CNET.
And most of the impartial publishers who noticed their visitors decimated by Google updates nonetheless haven’t recovered…
Check out Retrododo, for instance:
Certain, they’ve recovered a bit—however their visitors continues to be a shadow of its former self.
Housefresh is about the one web site I’ve seen make a near-full restoration, and I can’t assist however really feel which may have one thing to do with the quantity of fuss they (fairly rightly) kicked up about being penalized.
However this uncertainty is exactly the issue…
Perhaps I’m misremembering, however I’m certain that issues didn’t was once this fashion. Again within the day, for those who put a ton of effort into creating a top quality area of interest web site, you would be fairly certain that Google would reward you. You wouldn’t be terrified of the time, effort and cash you invested being taken away at any given second by a Google penalty and your visitors handed to huge manufacturers (or Reddit) with mediocre content material—at the least to not the identical extent as as we speak.
This doesn’t imply that the entire thing is Google’s fault. It additionally appears to be taking place as a result of the search engine marketing methods of massive manufacturers are getting extra refined.
For instance, this submit from HouseFresh talks a few technique referred to as key phrase swarming allegedly utilized by Dotdash Meredith to push down smaller websites within the SERPs:
“Swarming is about drowning out a competitor,” stated the one that reached out. The target is to “swarm a smaller web site’s foothold on one or two articles by primarily publishing 10 articles [on the topic] and beefing up [Dotdash Meredith sites’] authority.”
Bottomline? I simply wouldn’t have the arrogance as of late to speculate considerably in an affiliate web site. Even when I created industry-leading content material, I wouldn’t have religion that Google would really rank it above huge websites.
Okay, this one is extra of a predication… however I believe there’s a really actual chance of it taking place.
Affiliate websites have labored properly traditionally due to how individuals search. If you wish to discover the very best air air purifier, you go to Google, seek for “greatest air air purifier,” click on a listicle within the search outcomes, click on certainly one of their affiliate hyperlinks, and… BINGO, the positioning makes cash.
However what if Google provides AI overviews with product suggestions to affiliate searches?
I believe this has the potential to chop out affiliate entrepreneurs altogether.
For instance, for those who sort “greatest air air purifier” into Gemini or ChatGPT proper now, you get an inventory of suggestions:
It’s fairly simple to then analysis these suggestions your self on YouTube or TikTok.
If Google provides these sorts of AI overviews to product evaluate searches, individuals wouldn’t actually need to click on on a search consequence anymore. They might simply analysis the merchandise AI recommends themselves.
After all, they might nonetheless select to analysis these merchandise in Google, so affiliate entrepreneurs may nonetheless earn a living from product critiques. However I believe it’s extra probably that they head to YouTube or TikTok for the explanations I discussed earlier.
As for why Google would hassle, it’s arguably a greater consumer expertise—however they might additionally monetize these AI overviews with PPC adverts.
For instance, Google already reveals sponsored outcomes whenever you seek for most merchandise:
Google may simply simply cost these manufacturers for clicks when the product is really useful in AI overviews.
I believe Matt Diggity has the fitting thought: swap to ecommerce.
In the event you learn my takeaways from interviewing Ash Younger of CarMats.co.uk, you’ll know that ecommerce will be extraordinarily profitable—even in boring niches. Ash is on observe to do £10M in complete gross sales in below 5 years.
There’s a easy strategy to discover ecommerce niches in Ahrefs, too:
Run a clean search in Key phrases ExplorerFilter for non-local and non-branded key phrases with transactional intentFilter for low problem key phrases, KD <= 10Filter for key phrases with low DR websites rating, DR <= 40
It’s then merely a case of searching for fascinating niches within the outcomes…
For instance, there are 33K estimated month-to-month searches for “leg heaters” within the US, and loads of pages from low DR web sites rating with few or no backlinks.
If we plug “leg heaters” into Key phrases Explorer as our seed key phrase, go to the Matching phrases report, apply the identical filters, after which cluster by Mum or dad Subject, we’ve a low-competition ecommerce area of interest just about able to go.
I’m certain you wouldn’t want to maneuver mountains to rank for many of those phrases. It could in all probability simply take some fundamental search engine marketing.
If you wish to be taught extra, learn our information to ecommerce search engine marketing.
Bought questions? Ping me on LinkedIn or X.