The Affiliate Journey

When I first saw Google Sidewiki yesterday when I fired up my browser I had some mixed feelings. For those that aren’t 100% familiar with what it is I’m talking about, Google Sidewiki is basically a collection of comments about a particular webpage stored in the “side bar” wiki.

Here’s a Screen shot of the example screen you see when you first set it up:

Screen Shot of Google Side Wiki

Of course this isn’t just a free for all. You must have the google toolbar and an google account to post comments. So not every tom, dick and harry will be posting stuff on a sidewiki on your site.

The Potential PROS of Google Sidewiki

I feel this is a nice way to police publishers and affiliates who produce crap content. You can’t get away with fluffy articles and crappy content if the general public can comment on it. Well you can, but you will grab a bit of bad press I think from those that use sidewiki.

Also, it could help produce content ideas. If you have visitors that are interacting using Google Sidewiki and askin questions your content doesn’t cover then you could grab some new article ideas or even improve a sales page & layout with feedback directly from visitors.

The CONS of Google Sidewiki

Of course like everything else the web creates this is open from some serious abuse. How can the spam be monitored?  I see links underneath comments that say “report abuse” but seriously, who’s gonna run around the web policing spammy comments.. Think Blog comment spam.

Also this leaves a door for your competitors to comment directly on a page of yours using the Google Sidewiki functionality. Of course you can report abuse… But what will be deemed abuse.

Final Thoughts.

I don’t know how effective this will be really for all websites. If you have a website about golf and are providing crappy content then you’re probably not selling anything. Of course if some how you are ranked high and are providing poor quality tips or articles you could end up with a comment or two.

Of course who is going to be using this thing has to be asked? The average John Doe or Jane isn’t going to know what the heck Google Sidewiki is, so I wouldn’t worry too much about it. How ever I think it is something to keep on the radar and check on your sites once and a while to see what’s going on.

Could this eventually become some sort of ranking factor?

It’s possible, I see Google wanting to move to a more peer reviewed yet moderated style of SERPs. Of course this isn’t happening anytime soon because of the SPAM and ABUSE factors but the future could hold some weight in something like the Sidewiki tool bar option!