As affiliates i think we need to be very aware of how this can effect our search traffic.
There may not be any big changes early on (its not even default in the uk yet) but as time goes on users will learn to use it how google intends.
This can have some big issues if you have high ranking pages for highly profitable key words.
For example… say you rank for free bingo online and you are making plenty of bucks through people typing that exact term
Say people get to the o and google suggests they want offers – you could get a % of “your” traffic leaving here and going to the guy who ranks for free bingo offers.
I think this has been inevitable for a while, but you really have to be top of fold page one now for whatever search people end up with and as time goes on it looks like thats going to be longer and longer tail.
When google puts more emphasis into its algorithms for time on page and back button usage, then those of us who havent given up on “content is king” will be reaping the rewards again. Blak hats, your time is running out!