Can merchants restrict SEO affiliates from ranking for their brand terms?

I made a rather flippant remark earlier on in the year regarding increasingly difficult (at times outrageous) demands from merchants when it comes to affiliate prorams and their brands. Said flippant remark along the lines of: ‘Before you know it, they’ll be forbidding affiliates from outranking them on their brand terms in Google! Scoff scoff!’. Hmmm, and yep, the rumblings are starting all over the place. It doesn’t seem to be a big issue just now but I can see the dust of the forthcoming raging hordes gathering over the hilltops.

First of all, let me say that I am 100% behind a merchant protecting their brand name – they’ve spent a lot of time and money on this brand and I totally get it, and to be honest I don’t see why many exceptions should be made. Now I love affiliate marketing, and I get that a lot of affiliates get jerked around by merchants but on somethings I really disagree – it’s just like: ok so the rules have changed now, how can we make this work? Let’s all move on here. But if the merchants are in the wrong, then I will try my upmost to make sure affiliates get a fair shake – although I may not always be successful (sometimes, as with everything in life, you get more of an outcome if you just repeatedly bang your head against a brick wall).

Anyway, I digress – the point is, despite all the mixed feelings outlined above I’ve always thought it was a bit of a stretch to ask affiliates NOT to outrank the merchants in search engines (usually Google). I’m sorry, but come on! The merchant will likely have the brand in their url as well as all the usual bits and pieces that make websites all SE friendly. If an affiliate site actually manages to outrank you for your OWN brand term than maybe you should be giving your SEO guys a good kicking rather than your affiliates. It should be fairly easy for a merchant to rank on brand terms, and in the case that an affiliate outranks you then maybe you should look into exactly what your friendly, neighborhood hired SEO guys have been charging you for.

As anyone who’s tried to get a site up a search engine’s rankings will tell you, it’s difficult to predict where your site will turn up and control what it does while it’s up there. Sites, especially affiliate sites, are totally subject to the SE gods and their will. It’s not like a PPC ad where you can lower your bid etc, and semi-control what and where your ad shows up. I think the fact that more and more SEO affiliates are showing up, merchants and networks (and us lowly agency folk) will have to think up terms and conditions to incorporate the whole SEO camp to help protect their brand but totally forbidding affiliates to outrank them in search engine’s natural listings is bordering on the hysterical. I get a bit frustrated sometimes and want to just say: ‘Ok, let’s all take a really deep breath, relax. Ok now let’s use some logic here this time’. Merchants need to really start viewing affiliates as marketing partners, and affiliates need to hold up their end of the bargain by accepting what it means to be a partner and act like one.

And on that note, I’m off to listen to some Pony Up and my new favorite song The truth about cats and dogs (is that they die). Meh, I like it!