In reply to Nate Wright.

To piggyback on that thought, while they make mistakes, Google is extremely good at what they do. I don't think you were being critical of affiliate marketing as a whole, but only the types of affiliate blog posts that ended up getting punished by Google.

Not to point fingers or make assumptions here, but honestly my first thought on reading this article was: if you lost the majority of your traffic/business due to a Google algorithm change.. to me, that's cause to raise an eyebrow. That said, the fact that the Tavern has taken an interest, and (like I mentioned in my previous comment) the niche nature of Academia Themes puts them in that "long tail" category, I'd guess that this doesn't really reflect on the quality of their product.