Is it Googles position that it is willing to provide content network publishers poor quality landing pages from the ads Google provides too those publishers?
At a minimum shouldn't content network publishers be provided a global option such as "Allow/Block Low Quality Score Landing Pages" to allow them to make the same editorial decision that Google makes.
It seems to me that the dichotomy of treatment between the two networks lends a lot of credibility to the theories that the quality score updates are more a way to manipulate bid prices than the are to improve the user experience.
Any feedback you can provide would be really appreciated.
1) Encourage trial on the content side.
2) Deal with AdSense quality issues (both advertisers and publishers) at a later date.
To quote Confucius, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."
I also suspect that they are currently WAY understaffed. They just announced they're moving the entire AdWords operation to Ann Arbor (about two miles from me, actually) and hiring up to 1000 people for it over the next few years.
Wow, that's going to be disruptive!
On the other hand, the employees will probably appreciate the housing prices - if they can sell their California homes, that is!
BTW, long time no see, Meg. I remember you from m-net. I've been in San Diego for 15 years now.
There's all sorts of news items about it in the Detroit Free Press and Detroit News. It's considered quite a coup for the area, given how many people are fleeing the auto industry debacle.
If you live around here Soze, maybe you should go talk to them at least. Be your chance to have an influence on things.
My original point, though, is if they're planning on needing 1000 people, that would tend to tell me they don't have all that many already. And the ones they do have might not want to move here.
[edited by: netmeg at 10:21 pm (utc) on July 12, 2006]
Therefore a "relevant" landing page (which is relvevant to the general theme of a content site) will fit perfectly for content sites, but that same landing page might not work for the "specific search terms" entered by searchers.
...People find content sites from many sources, not all of them Google searches.
Therefore, the "theme" for a content site will be the guiding factor, but for the search network the "specific keywords" will be the guiding factor.
Both networks are not the same, and thus require different methods for showing ads.
The quality score of the "landing page" is quite distinct from the relevence of the landing page.
You're trying to falsely suggest that the "search terms" entered by users are not in any way tied to the Quality Score generated by a specific landing page?
That's wrong.
The Quality Score generated by a landing page is based directly on the keywords entered by the user.
For example, a landing page about "Purple Widgets" will help to generate a higher Quality Score when a user searches for "Purple Widgets".
However, that same landing page will help to generate a lower Quality Score when a user searches for "Blue Widgets".
That's because the "search network" can ascertain the intentions of the user more "specifically" than the content network, because they are searching for SPECIFIC VARIATIONS of products and topics.
The content network doesn't have those "specific variations" of keywords to ascertain the specific intentions of the user, so therefore the "general theme" of the site must be used instead.
It's a different ballgame.
Therefore, of course the content network will have a different system for delivering relevant traffic, since without "keywords" they must use the "theme" of a site, and that theme is usually much broader than any single specific search.
Therefore, of course the content network will have a different system for delivering relevant traffic, since without "keywords" they must use the "theme" of a site, and that theme is usually much broader than any single specific search.
That's true in some cases, but Google often delivers highly targeted ads on specific content pages (hence the term "contextual advertising"). If targeting isn't quite as consistent on the content network as on SERPs, one reason may be the fact that Google Search has more advertisers for a typical keyword than the content network does--at least for now.
I am sure there is also a global quality score for your website that weighs in. Merchant sites will find easier to bid on not so relevant keywords.
Why does quality score effect only "search"?
Because some of the traffic on content sites comes from other search engines.
i.e. reducing advertisers' spends on content network would reduce the monetisation of competitor-sourced traffic. It's the same deal for MFA.
CJ
I've read several places that Google is building an Adwords "sales and operations hub" in Ann Harbor that will employ 1k people. but I haven't read anything about them moving their entire adwords operations. My take was that it was more of an adwords expansion than relocation.
The Detroit Free Press reported it was the whole thing. But they're running dog slow right now, so I can't find the exact quote at the moment.
Historically, we have kept any type of AdWords quality evaluation to Google.com alone because it is the most level playing field for all advertisers; everyone is opted in to Google.com, you're live on Google.com immediately for most keywords, and we have completely control over where the ad blocks appear on the page. Appearing on even the search syndication network involves a number of factors, some of which are outside of an advertisers control, such as partner's not accepting certain types of ads and approval status.
The AdSense team is charged with ensuring the quality of the publisher sites, an ongoing process which will continue to evolve.
And on a side note, the Ann Arbor location is not a replacement for the current Bay Area office, but an expansion.
AWA2
Thanks for your reply. I am not sure it was quite spot on. Your reply speaks to using Google search as the basis for evaluation. This makes total sense for the reasons you mentioned.
However as you know, even though Google only uses Google search for evaluation purposes, the result of that evaluation effects keywords min CPC for BOTH Google and the search network. Its a glaring difference in treatment between the search partners and the content partners. As I mentioned in the original post, its this difference that lends credibility to the various theories that "quality" is not the real motivator in the algo updates. I am not saying I agree with those theories. I honestly don't know. But I think you can understand by not giving the content partners equal treatment with search partners for these editorial decisions Google does raise some questions.
Hmm, so much for the excitement here in the local media that this is somehow going to reposition michigan as a technology hub :)
Oh well, at least you could hope that maybe they'd give you your job back at a later date but I don't suppose they enlighten you on what was wrong in the first place. It would be a very strange and uncomfortable place to work and everyone would steal their paperclips and damage their property first chance they got. That wouldn't be a healthy work environment.
But at least they'd let their favourites keep their jobs and put in half arsed performances on every level just to rub your face in it.
As I mentioned in the original post, its this difference that lends credibility to the various theories that "quality" is not the real motivator in the algo updates.
It's worth noting that the most recent policy change is one more step in a process that began at least a year and a half ago, when AdWords stopped the use of multiple affiliate ads that pointed to the same URL. Back in January of 2005, Google cited the "user experience" as the reason for the change, so the handwriting was starting to appear on the wall--and in December of 2005, Google again referred to the "user experience" when it announced "a new addition to the Quality Score" at:
[adwords.blogspot.com...]
A cynic might argue that Google's continuing emphasis on the "user experience" is nothing more than a smokescreen, but if that's true, it's a smokescreen that Google began laying a long time ago.
I mean would they just sack you without warning and tell you to look at the quality guidelines
No, they'd pause your employment for 'cause', but they'd be willing to overlook your transgressions if you'd agree to work for...say...$.25/hr. Of course, the salary adjustment would be about increasing quality.
[edited by: pdivi at 12:42 am (utc) on July 18, 2006]
The press release says the average salary for the Google Ann Arbor center is going to be $47000, so i think its going to be just support/editorial/call center staff and the main technical/algo team would be still in silicon valley.
It's called "domestic outsourcing." Pretty soon we'll have people on the coasts complaining that, whenever they call tech support, they get a Midwestern accent. :-)
Your quality score does effect your ad position on the content network as well, but minimum CPC requirements do not. It would be incongruous of us to use the smart pricing model to reduce the cost of a content click to $0.08, but then turn back around and ask for $2.00 for that click anyway. With the limited amount of real estate available on most AdSense sites, we expect that low quality ads will be outranked anyway, removing the need for minimum CPCs.
And as europeforvisitors mentioned, this is one in a series of evolutions for our ads quality model.
AWA2
It's called "domestic outsourcing." Pretty soon we'll have people on the coasts complaining that, whenever they call tech support, they get a Midwestern accent. :-)
Pfaugh. WE don't HAVE accents.
