I believe it has nothing to do with landing pages. I'm an affiliate who sends directly to sponsors. I use very few landing pages. The site I send to IS the landing page and is where the surfer wants to be. So this is as targeted, as catered to the surfer as poss. They want to go to Joe Schmo's porn site and they go to Joe Schmo's porn site.
And like eveyone else I got hit hard. I feel it has more to do with getting rid of guys who have managed to wrangle cheap traffic. Guys paying less than .20 for traffic and esp less than .05...
After 2 years of tweaking I managed to get a handful, not too many but a few highly targeted ads getting 50%+ CTR (a couple upwards of 80%) and after the recent change a few months back to base costs on CTR many were actually down around 1 cent. Almost all have been hit with at least .50 cent/click now. Some $1.00, some $5.00, some $10.00. (At least G uses nice round numbers - seems those are the four new CPC possibilties )
Certainly (as someone else said) they have no interest in me making money at 1 cent cost/click. When they cut the minimum of 5 cent CPC a few months back and based the CPC on the CTR, I knew one cent traffic wouldn't fly forever. But it was good while it lasted. At 1-5 cent traffic I couldn't help but make money. So anyhow, affiliates getting real cheap traffic regardless of the CTR they have obtained are #1 on the chopping block.
From what I see porn listings are dropping like flies in November. Noone is listed anymore for most targeted porn KWs. I imagine some are riding out the loss in hopes of a revert but I believe all were hit fairly hard. If your advertising plane tickets, real estate, cars, ect you can still play the game perhaps at $5.00 per click. Porn guys cant. Not at 50 cents a click and above. You simply can't make profit at .50/click or above in most cases.
G knows this. Still many porn KWs are now sitting unadvertised. Is G gonna give up those porn KWS and let em sit unadvertised? I don't think so. Because very few porn WMs are gonna step in for those listings and take over at 50 cents+. It is simple NOT profitable to any affiliate selling porn paysites. Perhaps the porn site owner themselves at .50/click could step in but even the owner can't profit at over $1.00/click. And certainly not at $5-10.
So the ends of this as I see it are either...
1) This nightmare reverts back over time (unlikely)
2) G has other "in house" advertising plans for these abandoned KWs. Someone mentioned a cost per add deal or such. They definitely are going in some NEW direction.
There is no doubt they are trying to kick as many out the door as possible even if it means short term losses for some KWS that may go entirely unadvertised for a time. I delivered 80% CTR and instead of maybe raising me a few cents I see $10.
They are allowing only those very few who have really mastered things and can profit at such rediculous margins. They will let them stay around. No need anymore for the rest. They know very few can make a profit at $10/click especially in porn but also in mainstream too.
THEY DON'T WANT US AROUND ANYMORE. That is as clear as 2+2=4.
After all, now that you and me showed them HOW to optimize their traffic the last few years, WHY should they let me and you take the END profits anymore. Why not get the end profits for themselves. We showed them how, now they can take over from here and sell their own traffic themselves and make many times more than they're making now as the middle man. That is where this is all EVENTUALLY going.
It is HARD as we all know to develope advertising that works. Takes many, many 1000's of man hours of trial and error to get things down. Google, without us, the last few years could NEVER have optimized ALL their golden traffic. But NOW they can. We showed them how. Granted, they paid fairly well for the knowledge but now, indeed, they have the knowledge.
There is no other logical answer. $10 CPC is simply saying to me, "there's the door. thanks, we'll take over from here."
Regardless, I won't create one more adgroup for Google. Just mind what I have left. Implimenting new ads and doing the grunt work is over. Kind of sick of it anyhow. P in the A most of the time now days. And NOW proven to be an uncertain waste of time with the way they act. Who knows what tommorrow will bring? $50/click? Heck might as well go $100/click. LOL Who cares I'm gone.
Hello Microsoft. Hello Overture. No, I'm not alone. The waters around the good ship Google are rippling with men overboard.
ohwell that's business. Just a bit POed here. But, I understand. It was a good learning experience for us both. My new partner will certainly appreciate what I have learned from my old partner.
; )
As Paul Simon said, "Don't take my Kodachrome away. I can see the writing on the wall."
Although it did affect some adult advertisers … that was not the main focus, and many other types of sites have been affected.
I had a rather long talk with someone at Google today about this very issue. The quality issue is problematic for adult landing pages in two ways. #1 The free content to provide that rich experience for the user is difficult to provide on your own domain without running into 2257 issues. #2 Understandable language for the bot to use to figure out what your page is about gets lost in the numerous legal disclaimers most adult sites must post. If it makes you feel any better a lot of other areas are having trouble. As an example it is very difficult for the guy selling small lawn mower engine parts to provide a rich experience when all he has to work with is a part number and a one or two word description.
Also non targeted stuff got jacked higher than more targeted. (Which makes sense)
Example:
KW - [Joe Schmos Porn] sent to Joe Schmos goes to .50
KW - [lesbian porn] sent to Joe Schmo goes to 5.00
Doesn't matter though, both are not profitable.
Common keywords seem to trigger a jacking like movies, gay, lesbian while uncommon KWs slide through. Obviously a part of the algo.
With 300,000 advertisers as someone said it is definitly an algo at work. No rhyme or reason. That is the only way to review all those adds. They programmed it and set it loose. Still why $5 or $10 and not .67 or 1.18 or such. Seems kind of sloppy. Why didnt they just tack a nickle on everybody or a dime. That's why seeing $10.00 is really kind of mean of Google. No other way to put it. And there are a lot of POed web buiness folks out there today.
MAJOR public relations BLUNDER Google. MAJOR long term bad will now on the internet you got yourself.
There going to have to go back and undo some of the damage here. As you said a guy who has been selling lawn mower parts for .16/click suddenly sees $5.00. Makes no sense.
I realize they would have a hard time taking over all this in house. There are a lot of things being advertised.
Yet, I'm sure they have considered possibilities. Anyhow I may be off base there but now days after seeing $10.00/click who knows anything.
Ahh ya got to grin and bare it. The guy who went and had beers yesterday has the right idea.
Neither seems affected by the change.
