The issue I would like for you to address is of course is the radical rise in the minim bid costs that many of us are seeing. To get at this problem, I spoke to one rep on the phone today as my personal rep is “unavailable” and has been all day. I sent a lengthy email to support early this morning (my rep) and left a voice mail for my rep to contact me immediately. So far the only response I have gotten was from the lower the level rep when I declined to leave another voice mail for my personal rep. She was very apologetic and nice, but didn’t know what was going on. She told me all the reps were told was to expect some changes, but that they were not told what the changes would encompass or whom the changes would affect. She said she had spoken to some customers today that had similar issues, but simply put she doesn’t know what to advise them as she doesn’t know what the new quality system looks for other than the generic stuff from the Google Ad Words page. She looked at my account, and I had her note the same ad had been running in excess of 2 years and had produced a click through rate of 26% in those 2 years, and she agreed it wasn’t really possible to increase the quality the ad itself. She had no idea how often the bot looks at the pages so you can see if changes you make actually improve your quality score.
Your employees have been uninformed and left in the dark about these major changes to your program, and perhaps more importantly your paying customers have been left in the dark as well. The smart thing would have been to come to the community months ago and said hey we are thinking about some major changes, these are how these changes are going to affect you, and here is what you can do to bring your landing pages up to snuff. That way your business partners would not be left holding the bag when they are hit with overnight radical price increases, and are forced to seek immediate answers from your employees who have also been left in the dark, and have no useful information to provide your customers. I would suggest as good business etiquette and professionalism would dictate you roll these changes back immediately and evaluate what you have learned from this. Then come forward and announce what changes you plan to make, describe in detail what accounts it will have a negative impact on, and provide in detail guidelines for producing the type of landing pages that you want. That way your business partners can make a business decision as to if they want to continue to do business with you under the new system.
Sincerely
Mark A. Libbert
Attorney At Law
P.S. If any Overture/Yahoo rep is lurking I have 10-12k a month buy for you.
Some of you think Google exists to match consumers up with products to buy. That is called Froogle, not Google.
Its googles decision to have paid ads on their homepage, who decided they werent commercial?
Some of you think Google exists to match consumers up with products to buy.
That may not be it's original purpose - but that IS the reason they exist today. If not for the revenue they have generated doing just that, they'd just be another search engine.
Now I feel as if Google thinks we were in some way taking advantage of them and that now they caught us. I know this isn’t the case but that is how they are treating the advertisers that have been affected.
So now our business has to suffer until we guess what is wrong with the quality of our landing pages (Our particular ads consistently converted at 5%-10%, I’d personally say there was nothing wrong there). What is worse is that when I ask them how we can fix this problem they won’t give me specific answer. AWA, can you tell me why that is so hard? Why that is that such a secret? Seems kind of arrogant from our point of view, don’t you agree?
That may not be it's original purpose - but that IS the reason they exist today. If not for the revenue they have generated doing just that, they'd just be another search engine.
Google disagrees with you. Thus the reason for the changes. While the advertising is how they make income, as I stated, they could kiss the rears of every advertiser from here to timbuktu and it would not make them a dollar without having an audience to deliver to them. That is the bottom line, and that was becoming jeopardized as it was becoming a shopping channel.
They exist today to make money. They make money by delivering customers to advertisers. They have customers to deliver advertisers because they provide a beneficial search engine that allows users to access a wide variety of data not just the home shopping channel.
It is like if TBS turned into QVC because they both exist as a television network but they both make money from advertising and helping to push products. Google chooses not to be QVC, but still make money from advertising. It is not an unreasonable goal.
with reference to google search vs frooge, yes. But why have paid ads on google.com if they arent selling anything? If youre right, why dont google remove the sponsored ads? In fact, what ARE you saying, youve lost me.Its googles decision to have paid ads on their homepage, who decided they werent commercial?
Of course the ads are commericial. Google's positon, however, is since their goal is to produce an enjoyable search experience that provides quality information to the end-user that advertisers need to step up their game and provide a quality experience for visitors as well. That is Google's perogative. They can certainly have conditions placed on advertisers in order for them to get placement. Again, I see nothing wrong with that.
I know this sucks for people that want to throw up single page landing pages with a couple of pictures and a buy now button, but them are the breaks. For those that don't have a problem with delivering a higher quality experience, they will yield the benefits of these changes down the road.
They can certainly have conditions placed on advertisers in order for them to get placement
That might be fair IF they bestirred themselves to tell webmasters what those conditions were.
Actually I get the feeling that many webmasters here only provide 'quality information' and use adWords to bring interested surfers to the source of the information. They 'help' Google provide a 'rich and rewarding' experience to the surfing public and keep everyone happy and wanting more. They subsidize Google and so Google sends them 'Refrigerators'.
Ha Ha Ha .. I am sure everyone is making tons of money using G sponsored Search. The ones not affected are just lucky. The next algo will get them too.
Bottom line is, people will only pay for clicks if they see returns, and returns mean that customers are buying - and that my friends is the definition of allocentricity.
If someone searching for "widgets" buys from me, I continue to advertise, which by implication means I am giving the market what it wants.
That customer doesnt want anything else other than what I offered them, and no algorithm can tell that customer his purchase was wrong, or of low quality - if he wants to buy my "lower grade" widget, that is his right. If he wants to buy a widget with a broken wheel, instead of one which tests have proven superior, that is the very definition of relevance. If he wants to buy a widget which I guarantee will work far less than the competitions will, then let the market reign supreme. It is downright arrogant to restrict the buyers rights in this way.
And Google knows this. A company that has based its entire business model on relevance knows all of this. They cant not know it, what with all the consultants, and institutional investors safeguarding their investments.
So, there is something very sinister going on, because I dont believe that Google could not understand the most basic principle of capitalism, which is dont tell people what they want, let them decide and ride it all the way.
I really thought their decentralized model was the way forward, but it appears that they are turning into another monopolistic, short term plc.
And I dont understand it, not because they hurt my sales, but because it is going to hurt their own...
Oh, by the way, for anyone naive enough to still believe that google's algorithm is anything less than complete randomness, scrap that idea now. I have multiple "one page sales letters", some completely unaffected by the change, some absolutely ridiculed by it. Some of my more "spammy" affiliate based sites remain entirely untouched, and some of my "industry standard" vendor sites have been #*$!-slapped into submission. Either they had the best intentions and completely messed it up (which I doubt thoroughly given the viscious nature of the change and the lack of any feedback to clear things up) or they are up to something other than healing the world. They know what they did and they did it hard and fast.
If Google really could develop an algorithm which worked out buyers intentions across every niche on the planet, I would happily buy their stock at Berkshire Hathaway prices.
But in any event, a lot of people have to adjust their paradigms (me included).
Google is not your friend. Its a front. They are capitalists. Dont be evil?
A better motto would be "dont die broke".
I know this sucks for people that want to throw up single page landing pages with a couple of pictures and a buy now button, but them are the breaks.
While those type of landing pages might have been the target of Google with this change, unfortunately, those are not the only types of sites affected. For example, all the keywords it happened to me on were company names - mostly well known corporations I am an affiliate of. The ads promised to take searchers to the official homepage of these companies and that is exactly what I did. I guess Google does not like the quality of many of the Fortune 1000's home pages.
Of course the ads are commericial. Google's positon, however, is since their goal is to produce an enjoyable search experience that provides quality information to the end-user that advertisers need to step up their game and provide a quality experience for visitors as well. That is Google's perogative.
Can I just ask them get it right, and not just arbitrarily decide which ads to remove and which ads to keep?
I have no problem cleaning out the system. Many ads are garbage, but sadly many of them are the ones they're going to keep. The Ebay ads, and other large corporations which just grab whatever keyword you're searching on and throw it in their search field and 'hope' they have something listed on their site for that term.
And please, please don't say what happened last week didn't have some randomness to it. Either they're not done removing, or there was quite a bit of arbitrary slashings. I say this as someone who has 5 nearly identical landing pages, and a 6th close to it. For some unknown reason they cut 1/2 of my pages, but left the other 1/2 alone. Like I told someone else, if I gave you the 6 links, i'd bet you money you couldn't tell me which were safe and which got cut.
There is either some extremely deep issue here that goes well beyond landing pages and user experience, or they just randomly chose campaigns from user accounts that were flagged 'non ebay or other corporate sponsor' and plucked away.
Who knows, maybe the other half of my campaigns will get the axe too, maybe it's not done falling. If they do, i'll be even more upset, but at least they'll be somewhat consistent and i'll get a better understanding of what they're looking for.
It could be either of these two things (or something else I haven't thought of)
1) The algo hasn't applied fully to all pages yet
2) the algo is detecting the duplicate pages and increasing the cost of some and not of others
You can notice by the way, in the results some of the MFA's are NOT effected. Interesting.
By the way, my 2 cents worth, a suggestion to everyone, don't complain, either move on or work out how to beat the algo. Every algo can be beat. And interesting to note that most big companies seem not to have not been effected (if they were google would roll back for sure).
I dont expect you to divulge how on a public forum checked by G but I would feel a lot better working out a workaround if someone else had found one too...
Said my site was of "low user quality".
Wow.
I am speechless.
Two months to write the copy, split test it, re-edit it, change the layout, get a copywriter to do the copy, split test it again, and get it the point it is today. I cannot increase conversions to that site if I tried.
And yet Google has decided it is of lower quality. Apparently purchasing is not the only metric Google need to look at.
Well, I have bad news Google - purchasing is the only metric you should be concerned with because you cannot track any other metric with any real accuracy.
Your algorithm does not tell you anything, because I have a network of sites with some affected and some not - some are of exceptionally high quality from a user pov (killed by the algo), some would be seen as spammy and I admit it (completely unaffected).
She says she is going to escalate it but I am not holding my breath for any length of time...
Anyway, off to find a workaround before they send me a standard template email
No, but I have been able to get some impressions on my keywords and a high CTR by upping my bids to apx. 40% of the new reguirement.
The high CTR comes thru. because there are so few ads showing for my keyword and the impressions get triggered I guess because some budgets run out or because of some other unfathomable reason.
I have also upped my bids on the ' content' network and this has triggerred a huge rise in impressions. CTR is pathetic.
I was able to exhaust my Budget for one campaign y/day. This gave my site some boost.
I guess , if you pay G more, your ads will show. This has all indications of a money grab. I now need to pay more for traffic. I guess, I need to improve my 'conversion rates' to cater to this change. More work for me.
Yeah, got the same response. You got to just pay more.
That has zero to do with TEXT, quality, etc. The only way for these ads to still remain active is for Google to have programmed in an exception for Ebay.
This really does seem geared to the Fortune 1000. I am not sure Google revnue is going to be impacted that much.
The shame is that 4 years ago, typing in Fish Food would have resulted in some really interesting quirky sites, oddball information, etc. It appears now that Google has adjusted the algo to provide a seamless Fortune 1000 expereince.
because I have a network of sites with some affected and some not - some are of exceptionally high quality from a user pov (killed by the algo), some would be seen as spammy and I admit it (completely unaffected).
But I'm just one data point. Care to add your observations?
And for the 'yay Google' crowd, yes, I completely understand that no one but Google can possibly consider all of the variables that might be affecting the 'quality score'. But of the few variables I am able to consider, high ROAS seems to be one that correlates to the minimum bid hikes -- at least on my sites.
You want to take out an ad in your local newspaper promoting your pet supplies store. Your competitors are mainly the big chain stores. You go see them and they give you a rate card. Then you go to your graphic artist, who designs you a killer, camera-ready ad with a coupon. They start running the ad and you get a lot of business...the ad pays for itself and then some.
Two weeks later, the publisher calls you and says,
"Thanks for the ad, Bob. Very nicely done and professional looking. I'm glad it's working well for you.
"However, I drove by your store today and saw it was in a bad neighborhood. Your door was painted red when all the others were painted earth tones. The paint on your building was faded. The sidewalk was cracked. I called the phone number and it went to voice mail. Even if they're buying from you, I think it's causing your customers to have a negative experience. Petsmart and the other big guys don't have these problems."
So, I'm afraid we're going to have to raise your rates. We'll still run the ad, but you need to pay us 100 times more for it; otherwise, we won't accept it. Have a nice day."
Or, it could be worse. The publisher says, "Yes, we know your store looks as nice as MegaPets. It's in an even better neighborhood, too. However, for reasons we can't tell you exactly, our computer has decided your store is providing a worse user experience than MegaPets. Therefore, you will have to pay us 100 times more than MegaPets does for the same sized ad."
Of course, you ask, "Well, I note that MegaPets advertises in ALL 100 of your publishing company's newspapers...they are one of your biggest clients. Could that have something to do with it?"
And they answer, "We're not able to answer that, Bob. Have a nice day."
To which you respond,
"OK. Expect to hear from my attorney, the FTC, and the state attorney general's office shortly. Have a nice day."
Over half of my family are lawyers and the majority of my extended fam as well. Having ran this matter by several they all have concluded that G has broken no laws here.
I understand many have gone through a "big" change to your business but why not put more effort into a solution as opposed to spewing out your anger which really will solve nothing.
To top it off, I get $10 minimum bids on keywords that don't even have any competition.
Like "blue umbrellas from Mars" for $10 a click for example...
Some keywords have no competition and some I only have 3-5 bidders.
What Google is doing is VERY, VERY, VERY wrong and if they don't change their policy they will go down, just a matter of time.
How did that toolbar get spread around? By word of mouth about how good it was and yes they had a good search engine too. Who spread the word? Mostly people like us on this board. We're the guys, and guys like us, our friends ask whenever they have a "computer" question or need advice.
After this do you think many are going to recommend google for anything in the future? I doubt it. Even those who don't use adwords are going to here something from someone who does. The word spread will be "it's just too annoying to deal with, I recommend this other company"
Will it happen right away? Probably not. Creating bad karma though with those who work on the web has historically not been a good thing.
Some prime examples being eToys and Altavista. I know googles a lot bigger than those co's. were and that "things have changed a lot since then" but we'll see.
the term I have been banned on had a ROI of maybe 700-700 ish, but then most of my campaigns do. I was probably paying third what the top guy was paying and 3x what pos 10 people were paying, so fairly average.
My CTR was okay, nothing special, and I had conversion tracking set up on G but it tends to be way, way off (so if I make 4 conversions it tracks one). I dont pay that much attention though when my ROI is that high... prob should do in retrospect etc etc
Volume on the disabled keywords are in some cases very high, in some cases very low. But ROI is high for all of my keywords (I dont enter a market unless the margin for error is ridiculous and I have tested lots of them), whether they have been disabled or not...
still no method to the madness as far as I can tell
I was probably paying third what the top guy was paying and 3x what pos 10 people were paying, so fairly average.
Interesting. Based on your ROI figures, even bidders in pos#1 were getting a huge ROI. Wasn't an efficient market -- too much 'consumer surplus'. I wonder if Google felt the keyword was being anchored from reaching its full profit potential by you & other low bidders?
I could understand if they were cheeky and raised it to $1 a pop but a 500%-1000 increase seems a little odd if they are trying to adjust it.
Basically, no one in my niche can pay $10 per click and survive, so it still sounds like they are putting their foot down 100% on certain sites rather than trying to make the market more efficient.
increasing bids for $5 a pop isnt going to make the market more efficient.
Agree. That kind of hike is done w/ the expectation of you dropping out. In my case, hikes were 20-100%. Maybe I'm 'marginal quality'. Woohoo.
Or maybe there's a tiering approach in undervalued KWs; get rid of the low tier, nudge the middle tier above the top tier so the top tier will reciprocate to get back to #1. That would certainly be a stealthier approach than just jacking up everyone's bids (and potentially upsetting the highest bidders).
a 500%-1000 increase seems a little odd if they are trying to adjust it.
...at your 700% ROI, doesn't that increase get you right about at breakeven? Isn't that exactly where Google wants you to be in order to maximize their profit?
[edited by: pdivi at 5:59 pm (utc) on July 18, 2006]
I understand many have gone through a "big" change to your business but why not put more effort into a solution as opposed to spewing out your anger which really will solve nothing.
I think the problem is that the big G gives a generic answer like "Improve the user experience" without providing specific, measurable, objective goals. No guarantees it'll work. Just trust us.
I'm reading numerous posts from people saying that they *did* spend time, money, and effort tuning their sites to meet one set of subjective/secret goals in the past, only to have the rug yanked out from under them, and the response is "do it again"?
Welcome to the real "Google Dance". :D Keep hopping on one leg, son.
Yes, G has every right to make these changes. And paying customers have every right to be disappointed, frustrated, and angry -- and reduce their spending -- not that this is likely to hurt G financially.
well, like I say I have tried plenty of markets out on adwords but if the returns are anything less than 200% when I return my campaigns, I dont want to know.
If I get 200-300 ROI I expand into it, and give the user everything I physically can (read: great copy is a lot easier with a great product) which then results in higher returns like those mentioned
with google moving into CPA, they really arent making me happy. I am a capitalist, and the reason I use Adwords is high ROI so I can make lots of money. If I only make a bit, I am not interested. So, maybe that is what Google is thinking, but I imagine most of their advertisers are running their ads to make money not break even / make google as much as possible.
Looks like I am going to be going back to offline direct marketing a lot quicker than I expected...
