Paniking, I called google and emailed them. The tech person that I talked to there said this is the worst he has ever seen of destruction of rank. Later on they said that part of the quality part of an ad is its domain name. Then they said the new ad had to get some quality thru I guess getting impressions and clicks. Well I told this gentleman, "how am I going to get quality in the 38th position?" I am getting the run around at google right now. They are not admitting that the system is flawed. There was no warning, nothing written in the literature that this kind of massive destruction of an account could happen.
Basically beware of making changes to your ads. Beware of making domain changes.
It makes no sense to test an ad in anything but the exact same position that the previous ad was in. For example, the keyword where I was ranked #2. The new ad should show there too. If it stinks, then my CTR will go down and I will lose my rank slowly and it will tell me to improve the ad. Not moving me to rank #38 without ANY chance of recovering. Basically I am screwed, but I am not going to stay that way.
Has anyone else experience such a disaster? What is our recourse? We need to get this changed as advertisers as its highly unfair.
Especially if they rank you on domain name. Since that can be manipulated, and some people may hog all the domains which puts us at a permanent disadvantage. Also some keywords in domains are restricted by trademark. And what if we just change the tracking ID on the domain name. We still are killed. Google must admit this is the wrong way to do this.
My campaign was giving me 1200 clicks a night. It went down to 100. I am back up to 200 by buying my way back in. However for those 200 I am paying 3 times what I was paying for the day before the disaster. Anyone hurt by this policy should contact Google Adwords. I have all the email addresses and phone numbers. They need to hear from all of us.
Any suggestions from anyone. I am losing money by the bucket. I was doing great until I made this minor change.
They wiped out all my history and I am paying up as if new.
Words that trickled up to the top because of good performance...all gone. Its a disaster. It could happen to you.
And what if we just change the tracking ID on the domain name. We still are killed.
Don't put tracking IDs in your Adwords ads. There you should put an URL where you can redirect to different tracking IDs.
Put something like this in your ad http://www.example.org/google123.htm. This google123.htm can redirect to index.php?tracking-id=557 or index.php?tracking-id=abc - problem solved.
Jan
Cheers,
CaboWabo
If your situation is real bad, you can try reinstating your old ads. If you use AdWords API, this is straight forward. Even otherwise Google would be able to help you on that. Once it is reinstated, I would suggest that you add the Ads for the new domain slowly over time.
Any suggestions on how to deal with google and get them to admit that they are wrong. Not only on not warning us, but this new system is totally illogical. You cannot test one ad against another anymore. If one ad is at #1 and the other at #38, your original will always win, so why EVER change an ad!? Am I right logically?
This is their problem not mine
lol, they aren't whining here - so I would say it is your problem :)
You changed the ad, it's your problem if you didn't inform you what will happen. It's in their FAQ, it's here in the forum, so it's definitely not their problem. It's they way the system works and always worked, so they surely won't do anything. (Perhaps they will kick you out if you keep stressing them too hard, better think twice before you scream at your rep on the phone...)
So try our suggestion:
Try to restore your old ad using the Adwords API. Perhaps this will help, perhaps not. Not Google's problem - but yours.
Jan
In my opinion it isn't necessary to mention it in the FAQ (but I'm sure it is, remember reading about adding new ads for not loosing history or something...) because it's clear: history is data for one ad. change the ad, no matter if adcopy, targeturl or displayurl, loose the history. it's another ad now, so it would be unlogical to keep the history of the old one.
you made your old ad to appear #2, #3 - so I'm sure you will be able to get there with your new ad, too. you will need some money to get there in the first place, but you will be able to lower your bids with time when you built a small history with a strong CTR.
Jan
Unfortunately I am not able to give you advice because I don't know the Adwords system as well as some of the other folks here. All I can say that this definitely doesn't sound like it your mistake. It is rather ridiculous that Adwords doesn't give a warning that changing the URL can destroy your campaign. AWA, don't know if you're with us but this is something you folks at G should really look at!
Vphoner thanks very much for your post because this is a very important warning to all of us! Keep in touch with us and all the best for you and your business!
In other words its not a controlled experiment. The conditions are different for the both ads. This discourages you to test the best ad. Its a huge mistake by google adwords in my opinion.
While it must be incredibly frustrating that this happened to you, realize that your ads that had earned such a high adrank will most likely regain their position over time. (Unless the domain name was a huge part of why people clicked it.)
If you had ad copy that earned an position of 2 over the default position of 38, you must write pretty good copy. Trust that the good copy will fight it's way back to the top.
Quite a few of us have been where you are now. Instead of blaming a system that obviously works very well for many people, I prefer to think of it like this, "Why did I think that changing things about an ad wouldn't make it a new ad?"
It's rather hard to imagine a scenario where Google could allow an edited ad to take advantage of past performance by it's original copy. Although it never seems obvious when people first make this mistake, and it rarely seems obvious for weeks later, eventually that realization should give you a more valuable perspective on the way adwords is setup. That insight should serve you in improving your campaigns.
Now that you've made this mistake (and found this forum), you'll hopefully learn even more to make your campaigns more successful.
Every change can ruin your account - but every change you do not do can also ruin it because competition comes when it wants.
So please, accept your mistake and try to learn from it. It's not Google's fault.
Jan
In light of this sujan, I think your last post was a little harsh. Google might not be to blame, but neither is vphoner.
On a related point, I explicitly emailed adwords support and asked if editing the destination url would affect ctr before editing the url in my ad. I was explicitly told that it wouldn't. I made the change and what do you know? Ad CTR was suddenly 0%, ads weren't showing on the content network and the edited ads show as having been served for only a small percent of impressions, all consistent with an ad having been deleted and recreated.
Despite this, adwords support maintain that the CTR hadn't been deleted. I eventually just gave up. If pasting emails were allowed here I would - the back and forths make interesting reading.
vphoner is right to be angry. I am too. If we had even a fraction of google's financial and legal resources we'd at least have recourse to the courts, but it isn't an option for us small fish.
Let vphoner vent. At least others might avoid the same mistake.
In light of this sujan, I think your last post was a little harsh.
Don't think so, vphoner changed his complete url, display and target, if I understood him right.
Perhaps I should have left out "target url" in my last psot, because that's really not logical (to me) that e.g. changing from direct linking to the landing page to linking to a tracking server that redirects to the same landing page needs a reset in history and CTR. But it's the way Adwords works...
Jan
Another poor schmuck is going to do the same thing I did. Because google does not realize yet that it has to disclose this in a way that people can find out. They did not. So I have a major point with them. They can't refute this.
if you change your destination url, eg changing to a new server as I think vphoner said he did, google have to check that the url is correct, which means your ad goes off content and search network while that happens. It makes sense to me that you shouldnt be able to change your ads and keep all your clickthrough history etc. I didnt like it when I've changed ads, but thems the rules! I agree with Sujan its not googles fault, google hasnt tried to catch anyone out here.
If I were you vphoner I'd be careful, you're probably starting to show up on googles radar, and not because they want to compensate you for your loss...... remember what you agreed to when you started using adwords, "Google reserves the
right to suspend advertisements for any reason". If I was you I'd stop creating multiple threads on the same topic, and take it up with google directly.
If your ads were doing well before, bite the bullet and bid them back up there. You say someone from google agreed your account seemed particularly badly affected by this, and that is a valid point to raise, maybe the new algo makes it more difficult, but the basic point is its common knowledge changing ad urls is a bad idea.
Sujan, I have changed my ads hundreds of times. Never with an impact more than minor.
Pure luck.
There's no difference between changing url or headline (ad copy, display url...) - it has the same effect. You probably won't believe me, but it has been said for all the others reading and not posting. And now I will wait until it's tomorrow and AdwordsAdvisor will repeat all what we told you :)
Jan
Yes, G should warn all users that changing certain things can impact your ad rank and delivery. This is a good suggestion.
But it is hard to fault G's reasoning that a change in URL, ad text or whatever will result in a change in your CTR(and thereore ad rank).
For example, if you have a good ad rank for sometime and now change your URL, how is G to know that the contents on your new URL is STILL relevant to G's precious surfers?
I learn this the hard way and now I don't change anything unless the ad is not performing. Hey, I still have the "aff" thing on some of my olders ads :)
Customer's Always Right!
Don't think so, vphoner changed his complete url, display and target, if I understood him right.
you're right sujan, I apologise. I'm probably suffering from tunnel vision due to my own trouble with the editing the destination url only.
if you change your destination url, eg changing to a new server as I think vphoner said he did, google have to check that the url is correct, which means your ad goes off content and search network while that happens. It makes sense to me that you shouldnt be able to change your ads and keep all your clickthrough history etc.
You make a valid point about Goggle having to check the new destination for validity, but I still can't see why or how it would affect CTR. The landing page would effect conversion rates, not click through rates. A viewer decides whether or not to click on your ad based purely on what they see. Saying that editing the destination URL affects CTR is like saying the bid price affects CTR - how many adwords advertisers would be happy about losing their CTR every time they changed their bid? There would be a riot!
But it is hard to fault G's reasoning that a change in URL, ad text or whatever will result in a change in your CTR(and thereore ad rank).For example, if you have a good ad rank for sometime and now change your URL, how is G to know that the contents on your new URL is STILL relevant to G's precious surfers?
eyeinthesky, if you're talking about display URL then you have a valid point. If you mean the destination URL then see above.
Two ads with identical copy and display url, but different destination URL's would have the same CTR - assuming the surfer has never clicked on your ads before. I challenge anyone to prove otherwise.
Customer's Always Right!
If your situation is real bad, you can try reinstating your old ads. If you use AdWords API, this is straight forward. Even otherwise Google would be able to help you on that. Once it is reinstated, I would suggest that you add the Ads for the new domain slowly over time.
Inasisi,
Just so it's clear to everyone, re-instating the old ad verbatim will not bring back the old ad CTR. It does with a keyword, but not with an ad. You no doubt knew that, I just wanted to make it clear to anyone else tempted to try that feat.
I realize too, it wasn't an option for vbphoner since he was switching servers. Though that part is not entirely clear to me either. Over time, I've been moving scattered sites to a virtual server that I lease; the URL stays completely intact.
There must be more to vbphoner's situation. I apologize if I didn't read every word of each post in this thread.
I proposed in the 'what if' thread that an ad only use it's Ad CTR if more than 10% of the text changes. That was rather self serving of me since I'm often changing prices and dates.
patient2all
Now that it has been explained that this is part of google. My main problem with this is that there was no warning about this . I read ALL the literature online that google provided and no mention about changing URLs being the most damaging to your rank. Very vague references to quality score. I really did research all this before I made the changes. That is where I fault google, on non-disclosure.
And I also don't think its a good idea to change your rank based on an ad change. Here's why...
[1] You can't compare one ad to another scientifically in a controlled manner. If one ad displays in slot #2 and one in slot #7, of course the #2 is going to perform better.
[2] The system discourages creativity and efficiency. If an ad change can ruin your hard earned rankings....why change?
[3] When you make an ad change, I believe that it should be in exactly the same place, even the blue area. I did notice you get kicked out of the blue area on a new ad. That is another problem as the blue area is always better than the right side. So the new ad will always perform poorer than the old. All else being equal.
[4] If the new ad performs poorly, it will drop in rank by itself automatically. So, why change its rank artificially?
The CTR of the new ad will determine, or should determine its fate. I know thats not how the new system works, but thats the more logical way, unless someone can argue the other side is better. At least this way is more predictable for advertisers. By my changing the URL only, I got an unpredictable result. Devastating.
Reactivating a deleted Creative through the Adwords API does reinstate the CTR. I just tried it on one of my Ads and when I checkd the Ad group through the UI, I did see all the clicks and CTR showing up. It also doesn't go through the approval cycle as I did see it immediately on AOL too.
However this is not a solution for vphoner as going back to the old URL is not an option him/her.
patient2all
Reactivating a deleted Creative through the Adwords API does reinstate the CTR. I just tried it on one of my Ads and when I checkd the Ad group through the UI, I did see all the clicks and CTR showing up. It also doesn't go through the approval cycle as I did see it immediately on AOL too.
inasisi,
Interesting, but only through the API? Getting into the Google API is #55 of 83 tasks I'm hitting one by one. One problem for me is I'm rusty or inept on most of the supported languages, so I planned to "steal" from the sample code and go through a lot of trial and error to get the things that I want.
Wonder if anyone has a suite of tools yet written for these kinds of tasks? I'd pay $100.00 in a minute.
The ability to reactivate the ad extant only through the API is kind of unfair to non-programmers. Gives us an edge, but Google has never touted AdWords as requiring programming to be on an even footing with other advertisers.
I'm going to bump the API up on my list :) In fact, inasisi, I owe you a beer. I just came up with a fantastic idea that I always wanted to implement but couldn't. I can now effectively "pause" ads if I wish, would you agree?
Thanks,
patient2all
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