can a single word cause lowered smart pricing?

[annej]

A while back we discussed stop words that advertisers use with their ads at
[webmasterworld.com...]

The word 'free' is one that was discussed. As I have a free widgeting pattern secton on my site I checked it out and found that section earns about 1/3 less epc. I took the word 'free' off of all the pages except the index page of that directory and saw no improvement.

Now I'd wondering if the word 'free' has a dampening effect on smart pricing. It's like that whole section/directory has been affected.

Any thoughts on this? Could a single word affect smart pricing?

[lammert]

I just started a thread about the ways I use the settings in my AdWords account to select the sites I want my ads to be displayed. I use negative keywords for some situations and I wouldn't be surprised when some advertisers use the word "free" in their negative keyword list to stop their ads from displaying on sites where that word is mentioned. This causes lower ad inventory and lower EPC.

[annej]

That's what I thought so I took the word free off of all but the main page for a couple of weeks and it didn't seem to help on the ones I removed free on. That started me thinking it might be section wide but then it can't be advertisers as they do it page by page don't they?

That started me wondering about certain words affecting sections from the smart pricing level.

[europeforvisitors]

Lammert makes a good point about advertisers, but it's also possible (or even probable) that offers of free software, free downloads, etc. would trigger larger smart-pricing discounts. Why? Simply because people who search for freebies probably don't buy as much as people who are researching purchases do.

[lammert]

That's what I thought so I took the word free off of all but the main page for a couple of weeks and it didn't seem to help on the ones I removed free on.

Please remember that Google's Mediabot only visits a page every two or three weeks. So it may take a while before the algorithm realizes that the word "free" is gone.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

I have very dynamic pages and the MediaBot sometimes revisits after nearly every user page view (at least when I last looked), ie nearly half my traffic can be from the Mediabot.

Rgds

Damon

[netmeg]

It's an interesting question. My main site is an event site, and one of the fields is how much the event costs, and in most cases, it's free. So I have an awful lot of records with the word "free" in them. I'd hate to think I have to go through the database and replace them all with "No Charge" or some such.

[europeforvisitors]

I doubt if the word "free" by itself would be enough to boost a smart-pricing discount. If Google were that simple-minded, the company wouldn't bother to hire Ph.D.'s. :-)

[Sootah]

It's not smart-pricing that would lower your CPC based on words, it's the advertisers themselves.

With AdWords you have the ability to select "negative" words, meaning you can give a list of words that you don't want your ads showing with.

[annej]

Yes, I understand that words like 'free' can be blocked by the advertiser but since the whole section/sub directory seemed to be affected including the pages that did not have free on them I wondered if it could be something more. Looks like the consensus here is that it is unlikely to be caused by smartpricing.