martinibuster - 8:59 am on Jun 4, 2010 (gmt 0)

others don't care as long as they find what they are looking for. Overall, is the experience still "clean simple and good quality results which people like"?

I agree with you 100%. As you said, they don't care as long as they find what they are looking for. That's how the AdWords system was designed to respond to queries. Good point you made. :)

Presenting ads that lead to sites that users like is the point of the algo behind the AdWords program. This is what differentiated their product from Overture, which more or less let the market self-select who was on top by how much was bid- regardless of how many clicks were received, site visitor satisfaction, etc.

The AdWords algo will promote an advertiser to the top if their ad receives enough clicks and will keep it there if the advertiser's site meets various metrics that indicate the visitor is satisfied with the site they reached.

If an ad doesn't receive enough clicks then it won't be promoted to the top. Period.

If an ad receives enough clicks and users seem to like the page they land on then the algo understands that the landing page is relevant to the query and will keep the ad up north.

That is how it's supposed to work. As an advertiser that is how it works for me. But I know there are quirks in the algo that will keep an ad from the North position, even though it is there for other highly similar phrases. So imo it's not a perfect algo.