I have been pushing some sites lately, and a few stand out, in that I outrank the merchant that I ultimately send to.
I cant help feeling they wont like that and will pull the program or even just me. :-(
Does that happen at all, or am I being a big worrysome fairy
Most if not all merchants state in the T&C's of their program that affiliates can't bid above them in PPC listings - this is fair enough as it is something that you can measurably prevent.
Outranking a merchant in organic rankings isn't strictly speaking entirely down to your own efforts, there are so many factors at play, many of which are out of your control and as such I'm not aware of many merchants dictating that they can't be outranked in organic serps. I've heard of one or two, but they were bloody stupid, didn't have a clue about the affiliate channel and inevitably lost affiliates because of that.
Whenever we've outranked merchants one of three things have happened -
1. An offer has been made for the site by the merchant.
2. An SEO has been employed by the merchant to try to outrank us.
3. Merchant has done nothing.
It is a slightly odd situation for an affiliate to outrank a merchant and I can understand your concerns with it, but I wouldn't worry too much. At the end of the day they don't want to bugger you about too much otherwise you could redirect your traffic to a competitor.
One of my sites has been outranking the merchant and usually all the other merchants for many years now on some of the big keywords in that market. Never once heard from the merchant complaining I was ranking ahead of them. I would, however, love to have them make me an offer for the site.
I could potentially see a merchant complaining if you rank above them on their company name but other than that I think they are smart enough to realize they can't really have any say over how their affiliates rank in organic listings. The closest thing I have seen to a merchant trying to dictate this is they stated in their TOS that you couldn't SEO for their company name. But I still don't know how they could ever enforce that.
Gimp you're a big worrysome fairy
Yep, never had issue here.
Just been contacted about talking with the people that run the campaign. hmmmm
You're talking seo and not ppc, correct?
I think they have an agency that do both. Just Seo from my end.