Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Me, I'm all for it from both sides (AdWords and AdSense)
I follwed the comments/threads in the Adwords forum a bit when landing page Quality Scores were introduced for search ads. Pretty interesting at the time.
I can see the MFA/Abitrage crowd lining up here by the thousands and crying how the ad quality they provide is great and Google is out for money!
Lets list the complaints shall we?
- My ads are great! You do not know my market Google!
- Google is greedy, they have totally destroyed my business
- I am laying people off because of greedy Google!
- Google is the new Microsoft!
Lol
Of course, the last go-round didn't seem terribly effective on all aspects of the Search Network, so we'll see.
i am not advertising on content network only because $hit sites display my ads.
as i understand it, this won't change.
the contrary: the change is, that sites don't display $hit ads anymore.
$hit sites get smartpriced as always.
-Shorebreak
Got email today from the Inside Adwords Blog that over the next few days they were going to be incorporating landing page quality scores and tweaking their algorithms throughout the Content Network (similar to what they did for Search this summer)
Having trouble understanding exactly what this means. Does it mean that higher quality/paying ads will run on higher quality Adsense sites? Or does it mean something else? Can someone please give me a brief rundown. Thanks.
Google kicks out low-value ads and directs more content inventory to higher CPC/CTR ads.
As a brief experiment, I recently managed to place Google ads on Search for $0.03 to $0.05, and my landing pages were nothing more than a blog of 10 articles anybody could have obtained from free article directories.
I don't think we'll see the demise of junk ads ... oh they'll be targetted alright, but they'll still pay you $0.03 clicks while your visitors get taken to Adsense / Overture / YPN arbitrage pages.
Smart pricing is what Adsense is using to battle MFA sites which is something completely different.
At least this is the way I read it.
The most common use of a MFA that we run across is the following example.
Subject creates a site, this site is about widgets that pay 3.00 a click at average epc on adsense/ypn, mostly trash/scraped/stolen content, sole purpose to the site is to create a click on this adsense/ypn ad at the exit point.
Subject then purchases clicks on content network that will be relativly related to some degree to the target site he is sending the user to, this then generates revenue by paying say 0.03 cents per click and turns said user into a 3.00 dollar click.
This will effect the MFA directly as they will be reviewing landing pages of the content network ads. Once reviewed the target ad will be somewhat disabled via pricing increase making the model useless for revenue generation.
Other forms of sleaze that will be directly effected will be cpa / affiliate actions. It wont be perfect, yes many will still get through but at least upper management is taking action which is long overdue.
from what I am reading, this change has zero to do with the publisher website. Google is judging the advertisers website. This is the same thing they already do with Adwords search ads, they are just expanding it to content adwords ads (not adsense). It only affects the advertisers and not the publishers. Therefore MFA sites will not be affected.
If anything, this will increase the amount of money MFA sites make when the minimum bids are increased for advertisers.
[edited by: JeremyL at 5:19 am (utc) on Nov. 7, 2006]
If anything, this will increase the amount of money MFA sites make when the minimum bids are increased for advertisers.
Often MFA sites are both publishers AND advertisers. So, if, as advertisers, Google judges the quality of their landing page to be low, then their CPC rises, often dramatically, which either greatly decreases their profit margin, or prices them out entirely. If they can't bring in the traffic, then it affects them as publishers.
That's the idea, anyway.
from what I am reading, this change has zero to do with the publisher website. Google is judging the advertisers website.
It affects the publishers website if the MFA is trying to purchase traffic off the content network. The algo will (hopefully!) see that the landing page is crap and will put a higher price tag to that keyword. Consequently, the business case for the MFA site is getting more shaky, especially if you consider the potential effects of SmartPricing on their landing page. I bet the air is getting very thin for MFAs. In other words: I hope that we'll see fewer MFAs around.
And I can finally (!) dump my filter.
Not to mention the google alerts I get with my stolen content on them running google ads.
QS in Content should mean that advertisers will find it more expensive to advertise on the CONTENT side also if their landing pages are 'low quality'. This will definitely improve Google bottom line and not necessarily lead to higher payouts to publishers.
Publisher site quality is not being judged or measured (IMHO). There does not seem to be a reason to rejoice for adSense publishers. In fact they might be losers, if Google ad inventory falls and 'low quality' advertisers are unable to advertise even on the content side of the program. This ' QS ' thing is not perfect and does seem to hurt many genuine advertisers also who might not have beautiful or 'unique' content but may be interested only in selling ' A Product'. Google through the mechanism of QS only believes in providing a 'unique satisfying user experience' and commercial sales be damned.
There are going to be interesting implications. Not all positive for adSense publishers , I am afraid.. or for adWords advertisers..
Will my landing page quality affect my ad's position?
Not for Google search. While one's landing page quality is directly correlated with the minimum bid required for one's ads to run, it does not affect your ads position (or 'rank', as it is often referred to) at all.
But the AdWords Help Center [adwords.google.com] clearly defines Quality Score as
Quality Score = (keyword's CTR, ad text relevance, keyword relevance, landing page relevance)
and states [adwords.google.com]:
Your ad rank defines your position on a page after the ad auction. For search, this placement is defined by your keyword's Quality Score and maximum CPC bid.
There does not seem to be a reason to rejoice for adSense publishers. In fact they might be losers, if Google ad inventory falls and 'low quality' advertisers are unable to advertise even on the content side of the program. This ' QS ' thing is not perfect and does seem to hurt many genuine advertisers also who might not have beautiful or 'unique' content but may be interested only in selling ' A Product'. Google through the mechanism of QS only believes in providing a 'unique satisfying user experience' and commercial sales be damned.
As a publisher I care a lot about my visitors seeing crappy ads on my site, and/or getting directed to crappy sites.
So any change Google makes that has even the slightest chance of weeding out crap advertisers is a good move.
If this would mean there are to few advertisers left: I'll happily show alternate ads to my visitors. In fact I've been complaining for a long time to let us please set a minimum bid before even letting ads show. I don't want to show ads that yield like a cent a click.
To me the 'satisfying user experience' is the core of the case. I don't care what advertisers try to sell as long as it's honest stuff. And I do not count e.g. known spyware bundles, free stuff that is not free, "dead popes" on ebay, as honest.
Well said Swa66.
