Interesting Google AdWords and SERPs behavior

Seems like SERPs are contingent on AdWords

[Gundamknight]

Hi All,

(Sorry if this is in the wrong forum. And I apologize in advance if this behavior we're experiencing is somehow the result of our settings.)

We're noticing some interesting behavior out of Google lately.

We have an AdWords account (right-side and top banners) for our 2-word search term. Currently, and for quite some time now, we hold the number 3 spot in the results page for that same 2-word search term.

Last night, we noticed that after-hours searches from home for our AdWords search terms didn't yield any results. We were nowhere to be found in the AdWords top and right-side banners. The strange part is, we had somehow lost our search engine results number 3 spot and had dropped all the way to 17.

We logged in to AdWords and looked, and sure enough, our AdWords Impressions account balance was used up for the day. This explains the AdWords removal, but why did the search engine results drop us so unceremoniously?

Even more curious, we added $50 more to our daily impressions and voila! We reappeared almost instantaneously in the AdWords banners and the regular search engine results!

Why did this affect our regular search engine results placement? Shouldn't we have stayed at 3 if AdWords has no correlation to the SERPs?

Mostly, we want to know if this is something account-specific (i.e. we have some setting wrong in our account), or more importantly, is Google now linking SERPs to AdWords accounts?

I have always been led to believe AdWords and Google SERPs are mutually exclusive. I would hate to think about what this means if Google is truly using AdWords stats to place pages in the SERPs.

Thanks in advance,

-- Greg

[Tropical Island]

Perhaps AWA or GG will again repeat Google's credo that AdWords and regular serps are "mutually exclusive".

Our experience is that during Florida we lost a high ranking for one search term and replaced it with AdWords. When, over the course of time, our site returned we paused the ad group for that term. That was more than 10 days ago and we have held our posistion for that term.

[Gundamknight]

Well, pre-Florida we bounced between number 3 and 2 for our main keywords. At Florida, we dropped only dropped to number 6. Post-Florida and after we increased our AdWords budget, we were back to number 3 in SERPs.

Now, at 4:00 PM PST today, right about the time our AdWords Impressions hit our daily limit, we dropped off the SERPs and AdWords again. Back to 16 in SERPs and our AdWords ads are gone for our keyword terms.

This is obviously no coincidence. The question remains, why are these circumstances linked? Why is our SERPs ranking for our keywords being affected by the status of our AdWords account and our daily limit?

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Perhaps AWA or GG will again repeat Google's credo that AdWords and regular serps are "mutually exclusive".

AWA here, checking in as predicted, to report: no connection between search and advertising, and one does not affect the other in any way.

Do I actually believe the above statement? Yep, sure do. Right down to my toes.

AWA

[GoogleGuy]

GoogleGuy here, checking in as well, to agree: no connection between search and advertising, and one does not affect the other in any way.

3,000,000,000 web pages + 150,000 advertisers means that eventually someone will have a page crawled or have a ranking change around the same time that they changed something in the advertising; it's natural to look for meaning or causality in that, but I can vouch that the advertising system doesn't affect our search results, and vice versa.

[mcavic]

I'd try checking your rankings using the same datacenter (like www-lm.google.com) throughout the day. I bet that will yield more constant results, regardless of what happens with Adwords.

[Shak]

Shak here :)

AWA and GG sum it up pretty well.

sometimes things happen and we can make ourselves mad trying to figure out the reason behind them, and come up with a totally wrong analysis.

I think you just happened to be victim to sods law, and there is NO link between your drop/raise in adwords and your natural listing.

The rest has been explained quite nicely.

Shak

[sem4u]

I'm going to have to agree with AWA, GG & Shak :)

There is NO link between regular Google results and AdWords.

[jim_w]

The FTC has said that it would be unethical and I believe has passed laws against such activities under antitrust. If you have evidence to the contrary, you should submit it the FTC at ftc.gov

[mcavic]

Actually, I think the FTC has said that search engines can rank your pages however the heck they want:

[ftc.gov...]

[jim_w]

mcavic

>>You're using your favorite search engine,<<

Actually the URL you posted was for Search Engine Users and not Search Engine Advertisers.

I was referring to …
[webmasterworld.com...] msg#8
[webmasterworld.com...] msg#44
[webmasterworld.com...] msg#131

I’m NOT saying that G has done or will do anything that violates US laws. Laws are purposely written vague in some areas so that a court or panel can define laws as warranted, and if one interprets the law in a way that it appears a violation has occurred, then it could be advantageous for one to file a complaint and let the authorities decide.

[mcavic]

Ok Jim, thanks for the references. Separation of free and paid listings has always been something that Google is good at, and it goes along with the cleanness of their interface.

[Gundamknight]

If the google people say so, but being that our regular keyword disappears at night when none of our adwords are running, I'm not so sure I'm believing what I'm seeing.

So why is it this particular link can't be found anywhere on google, but within 2 - 5 minutes after updated my daily budget on the adwords campaign, both the regular link and both adwords suddenly surface to their normal ranking?

I must be missing something. I've tested this for 4 nights straight and have set ad's daily budget lower on purpose to also test. Happens every time.

Stumped.

[jim_w]

When G updates the indexes, it is quite possible for your URL to be missing in action while that is going on. People that lost position after the FL update end up on page one for about 60 seconds during that time. How long are they gone for? Check the length of time that it is missing.

[anallawalla]

My ads never run above the daily budget (4 digits) but the remaining comments about the SERP behaviour jell with my comments in a current GoToast thread. Ignoring the GT or Adwords issue, I noticed that a given term had only 3 100-result-SERPs at one time and then many more a couple of hours later. Why would that happen?

[Miop]

I suspended my adwords listings 3 days ago - no change in the serps. Still in oblivion...wish I knew why.

[webtress]

After reading though the postings I wish I could agree that one has nothing to do with the other. However I have searched and found adword ads in search results. The content was used only in a adword listing and now shows up under regular listings can't figure out what's going on.

[Shak]

After reading though the postings I wish I could agree that one has nothing to do with the other. However I have searched and found adword ads in search results. The content was used only in a adword listing and now shows up under regular listings can't figure out what's going on.

are you reffering to a web page which was used for an adwords ad, and now is showing in natural results?

Shak

[eWhisper]

After reading though the postings I wish I could agree that one has nothing to do with the other. However I have searched and found adword ads in search results. The content was used only in a adword listing and now shows up under regular listings can't figure out what's going on.

We've written some very specific landing pages for PPCs as the page has to be relevant to the advertised word. Because these pages are so specific to a KW phrase, they've also had the fortune of ranking well. They are in a www.domain/adword/page.html format, and some people have asked us how we got AdWords pages indexed. It's not that they are actually ads, just well ranking SERPS.

[webtress]

No, there content was never used on a web page, only on the adword ad. It is showing in the naural results.

[Shak]

No, there content was never used on a web page, only on the adword ad. It is showing in the naural results.

you mean the title and description of the adwords ad is showing in natural results?

very simple explanation I think.

partner sites showing "the ad" which have been indexed by Google.

I see this all the time

Shak

[webtress]

When you say partner sites do you mean affiliates? Because we have no affilates nor do we partner with other sites. Do these other sites just copy and paste the ads on their pages, trying to get more traffic without doing their own work. I have noticed that even though the results are our ad and the url is in the ad the desination url is different.

[Shak]

u lost me...

I am referring to Googles partner sites which ALSO show adwords ads based on their search syndication system.

Shak

[eWhisper]

It sounds like you have content targeting enabled in your account and your coming across site's using AdSense. Is this what you're talking about - other websites that are showing your ad and happen to come up high in some SERPS?

[webtress]

No guys, this is to hard to explain here without getting spanked. If you sticky me I'll go into more detail

[Shak]

lets keep away from stickying.

and how did you know we are into spanking :)

do try and explain please, I am sure others just like me are very interested in solving this dilemma for ya...

Shak

[webtress]

Ok here goes. I was searching for widget site on google lo and behold the results turn up several other sites that had widgets adword ad word for word including the url in the ad of widget site, however these other sites do not belong to widget. Is it possible that the adword ad appeared on another site using adsense when the gbot came through and this is how the ad got captured?

[Shak]

Is it possible that the adword ad appeared on another site using adsense when the gbot came through and this is how the ad got captured?

absolutely possible and very likely.

see, you answered your own question.

Shak

[anallawalla]

absolutely possible and very likely.

I'd have said most unlikely, as I can't find a spider simulator that sees the Adsense content or other Javascript. Has something changed recently?

[Shak]

I am referring more to Adwords partners, NOT adsense.

Shak