Thus, my ads are showing twice for the same search term - I've checked.
Whilst the duplication was accidental on my part, these kw's have been running for about a week.
Is this now allowed?
Syzygy
Maybe just a glitch in the matrix for now? I'll test it for myself to see what happens and report back..
briggidere
The only way I know Google will show both ads during the same seach is if one ad goes to xyz.com and the other goes to xyz.org. Anyway, thats a weird situation.
The only way I know Google will show both ads during the same seach is if one ad goes to xyz.com and the other goes to xyz.org.
Steven, Adwords will not show your ad twice for the same search if you own xyz.com and xyz.org and use them in the same account. It would have to be 2 different accounts for both to show.
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Syzygy
You ain't losing it. Whether accidental or not we could always use the same keywords in different adgroups or campaigns, but expect only one showing at a time.
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Wait, something got messed up here and I didn't do it.
I've always owned many domains and have always used at least some of the same keywords for each adgroup pointing to a given domain. In some cases, I'll test mutiple ads going to different legitimate URLs and often to entirely different domains in the same adgroup. All of this is allowed as they are mine. I'm not "playing" with display URLs or anything like that.
I only have one account. My expectation and experience has always been that my ad would only show one of those ads per search.
First search I do upon reading this, I see two of my ads show up on the same search! Never in 3+ years have I seen this happen.
What else got messed up? Oddly, this is the only month this particular campaign has not been profitable so far. When did this start? I was sick for a few days and didn't look at Adwords at all.
I don't want this happening. If no one clicks the ads, I'm penalized for 2 fruitless keyword impressions.
The "cheaters" who use multiple accounts to show twice don't suffer the lower keyword CTR * 2 as we now do.
Is this a bug or a feature?
Maybe all my ads are showing at once sometimes!
No, we're not imagining this.
Israel
If not a system glitch, the idea of being able to position secondary messages - back-up/reinforcing ads - further into the search results is quite an intriguing one!
Syzygy
Yes, Ronmcd, it's still happening to me and I don't like it. Looks like it's rife for abuse potential; some sneaky person will come up with a way to exploit it.
I only have one campaign that "shares" some of the same important keywords and for the only month in memory, it's not profitable. I'm not smart enough to figure out why from a statistical standpoint, but I just know it's hurting me.
In some cases, the very same ad will be position 4 on page 1, in the "hot spot" on page 2, maybe position 6 on page 3 and .... well I don't want to keep on blowing impressions!
All my other campaigns are running fine and as profitable as usual. The nature of those campaigns demands unique keywords.
Some might say perhaps I shouldn't duplicate keywords. That may not even eliminate the issue.
I now sometimes see the same ad from the same Adgroup on multiple pages in multiple positions.
Remember, if your ad appears on page 1, it would also show on subsequent pages (and count as an impression if the searcher kept paging, BTW), but always in the same position. We're used to that.
However, the new additional wrinkle is the double+ serving as you so aptly put it.
And of course, since admittedly I find some of the same keywords suitable for different adgroups with different ads, I'm seeing double servings that way too.
It's simply suited my purposes nicely to use some of the same keywords in different Adgroups over the years and having the ads rotate however Google did it ((CTR * pi) / (RND(ASCII value of first character in ad)))?!?!?!?! or whatever. Simply letting the chips fall where they may has always worked nicely.
If just wish Google could verify whether this is a bug or feature (I don't get time to read all the Adword news they send me).
If it's a new permanent feature, I'll accomodate how I allocate these keywords, perhaps resulting in an improvement.
I don't think it's making Google any more cash off of me either. If the searcher didn't like me the first time, they probably don't want to see me popping up all over the place.
However, in the absence of any apparent announcement, my gut feeling is that this a bug. Perhaps that is part of the reason for the Friday night "maintenance" coming up.
A virtual pint says it's a bug ;)
Israel
If not a system glitch, the idea of being able to position secondary messages - back-up/reinforcing ads - further into the search results is quite an intriguing one!
Syzygy,
Perhaps. If you could guarantee that they would show on subsequent pages in such an order that would build toward a desired promotional end result. Can you?
Reminds me of a 1950's US advertising innovation developed by Burma Shave using highway billboards. They'd appear intermittently, each with a portion of a phrase that built toward a final message.
Israel
When I take mine down, both of his show. Eventually the new ad comes down. Then soon after, his original ad goes back up. You guys seem to be seeing ads on different pages. These two are both on the same page in spots 1 and 2. Ths leads me to believe he is in fact double serving his ads.
This ad popped up a few days ago and is getting annoying. I really think something shady is going on. I have since taken screen shots, copied URLs and reported him. Wait to here back.
What's also different from your stories is that your ads are always shown at the same time. His only show when I try to put one up.
At the moment, unless it can be proven that the person has 2 accounts for the same keywords for the same merchant which is forbidden as I understand it, they may not be doing anything wrong.
Admittedly what you describe sounds like the classic
sneaky double servers with multiple accounts which do us honest advertisers a disservice.
However, if it only started in the last few days, at this point in time, we can't be sure it's the advertisers' fault if they show up multiple times. This person could be doing honest A/B split testing and Google is showing both ads at once!
Call it ego, but I never consider anyone else's ads, believing mine superior ;) -- plus my ads make money so I don't bother to look at others much. Perhaps there is more to this problem that I'm not noticing.
The Friday maintenance didn't fix it.
So at least at this point in time, I think we have to give apparent double servers the benefit of the doubt. I say that because any evidence is "tainted" and cannot be used against them since Google seems to have introduced this new phenonema themselves ;)
My suggestion would be even though it's 95% likely you're seeing an "evil one" trying to game Adwords, please report it while stressing the contents of what's talked about in this thread. I sure don't desire what I'm seeing with my ads though I sometimes look like I'm bad to the casual observer.
Many of us know, once accused with Google, the abilities to redress a wrong are quite limited. Kind of like being thrown in "the hole" while screaming "I'm innocent!".
What you say certainly sounds damning, but sadly there are mitigating circumstances at the moment that a good Adwords Advertiser Advocate lawyer would be able to instill in the minds of a Google court jury of the advertiser's peers ;)
(Wouldn't it be neat if we had some sort of Google Adwords/Adsense mediation services to go to if we felt wronged?) -- ;)
So while you're seeing someone walking around with a wad of bills and a broken shop window, you did not see the perpetrator break the window; reasonable doubt at this point. So, again, PLEASE tell them what's going on here too with the honest advertisers. I shall do so too as soon as I can manage to express it concisely instead of my usual rambling. Otherwise, I'll just get an automated reply ;)
What do you think, Soze, having stated my case?
JMHO,
Israel
Why were you even dragged into it?
The reviewer should've simply suspended the crooked competitor's ad for "Display url not macthing destination url". The competitor realizes that trick won't work. End of story.
Were they suggesting you owned the second account also?
So many dishonest, misleading advertisements on Adwords. I often wonder if it helps or hurts the rest of us.
Israel
I dragged myself into it, because his ad displaying my url, was causing google not to show my duplicate ad, because he was bidding higher than me. The duplicate ad and url triggered google to block my ad.
I would not have even noticed it, but my stats showed that my ad had no impressions for an entire day (this is an ad that has thousands of impressions a day). So I did a search to see if my ad was showing, and it was there (so I thought). So I clicked on the ad, to see if maybe there was something wrong with my server, that was preventing click through. I was shocked to see my main competitors ad showing. At first I thought that he had hacked my site - but then I looked closer at the link from the ad, and it turned out that he was just using my url for his display url, but the actual url was of his site.
Needless to say - I was pissed off. So I imediately got on the chat line with a rep. I had the hardest time trying to explain what was going on. When they did the search, they saw my url being displayed and imediately thought that all was well. Finally I convinced the rep to click on the ad - and even then I had to demand that she talk to someone else to convince her that what was going on was not right.
After all of that, my competitor must have only received a slap on the wrist, because he still runs his ads, and many times his ads are double served.
Hey, so do your double ads stay up all the time or do they go up and down
throughout the day? I'm trying to figure out if this guy is double serving or part of the glitch.
Soze,
Okay at this point now a few days later this is what is happening consistently on each search:
BTW, the campaign has been unchanged for so long that I show on every search for these keywords. Makes me reluctant to experiment radically. I'd rather tweak it back to profitibility.
It used to be if there were 3 pages of sponsored ads (10 per page), if I showed up in the top position, I would do so on each page and it would always use the same one of my ads.
Now a different ad of mine from the same Adgroup shows up in the "blue spot" or elsewhere on each page.
Now I am no longer seeing 2 of my ads on the same page which is what characterized the earlier strange behaviour.
So I would say, at this point, if what appears to be the same person shows up more than once on the same page, then more than likely you're looking at a cheater. Given Google's history of fluky behaviour, I would NOT testify on this matter in a court of law however ;)
This new "policy" or "bug" still differentiates greatly from the way things worked for a few years. If I was #1 or #2 on page 1, I would find that same ad on page 2, 3 and so on. Not another ad from another Adgroup that bids on that same keyword.
For some reason, this change is hurting me. I'm going to have to make lemonade out of this and restrict my keywords so they are unique to each Adgroup. One would think the multiple showings of different ads of mine during the same search would be advantageous, but this is the first unprofitable month for this campaign in about 3 years.
This is so strange in that the only difference now is that instead of the searcher seeing my message continually re-inforced page after page, they now see different variations of my ads. Many differ so considerably in approach that no one would associate it with the same advertiser (since I own several domains - but only 1 account).
My other campaigns behave consistently well. They require unique keywords.
No one has read any Google-talk about this change? Sorry, I don't know how to read blog yet ;)
I did get on the "live chat". Had a very nice, pleasant chat, but heard nothing back.
Israel
