However, just below PPC ads (we usually rank under top 3), I find 'traditional advertisers' with multiple domains/sites, covering rank (traditional) 1-3. Traditional listings allow for more ad space and even show sub domains/sites with lengthy descriptions. As a paying advertiser naturally this upsets me. After all we pay dearly to get and maintain top PPC ranks. Or in other words the traditional ranks are funded by the paying Ad Words community.
As the expense for google ads now comes close to being no longer economically viable, and top spots are hard fought and paid for, I am curious to know what googles long term policy is on this issue.
For a company with the resources to spend a million bucks a year on Adwords, that should not be an issue. Give me a budget like that, and I'm sure I could come up with a few useful ideas...
You did re-enforce one valid point though, without ads there would be no TV. In this respect, google is no different.
Without ads, there would be no commercially operated, free to view TV. But there would still be other forms of TV (pay per view, community operated, governement funded, etc.).
On the other hand, without TV, there would be no ads at all.
That juxtaposition should already tell you something about purpose and priorities. I can certainly understand your motivation, but you seem to see the world through strongly colored glasses: Everything that doesn't serve your own commercial purposes must be wrong by definition.
We believe you should know when someone has paid to put a message in front of you, so we always distinguish ads from the search results or other content on a page. We don't sell placement in the search results themselves, or allow people to pay for a higher ranking there.
I've used Google for awhile now, and long before I knew about adsense and adwords, I managed to click on the natural results of my query. Google is doing exactly what I need it to do. It is returning results that were related to my search term. I am a fairly intelligent person with some ability to reason that if I am looking for information on a particular BSOD, that I'm not going to find it by clicking on the ad that says "Find BSOD on eXample.com"
Don't fault the users for clicking on the natural search results.
<edit>
We spend well over USD 1 million per year with google and despite the ever increasing costs are committed to PPC ads.
Yet here again, in short, my concerns.
- PPC ads do not receive more, or even the same coverage, as many top 1-3 'traditional' rankings (i.e. less number of characters, number of links pointing to the site/or related sites, keyword re-enforcement though bold lettering).
- Most commercial sites in highly competitive keywords environments, covering top traditional rankings, are SEO engineered. Thus competing directly with PPC ads, though without paying to google. Yes, fair enough that these sites are there. But not with more text/links etc. than paid ads. Two options apply: ALL listings (PPC and traditional) received the same ad space OR paid ads get more.
- With the price of google ads having doubled compared to last year, I would like to see google address this. Something must give. Google is in a situation where it wants to please all people at all things. I simply believe that this stand is not longer practical.
Note: If one advertises for hundreds of various keyword combinations it would be foolish to believe that SEO tactics would drive the site into traditional top spots (and surely not for hundreds of websites). Thus for the serious, financially committed advertisers SEO maybe an option, yet it will only be on the sidelines.
keyword re-enforcement though bold lettering
If you don't know how to build Adwords ads that get keyword reinforcement through bold lettering, invest in some Adwords training.
I fully understand that most SEO 'specialists', do not share my concerns. May I also remind everybody that I am purely referring to commercial sites/rankings, which sell products via the Internet.
I'm not an seo specialist and neither are many of the people that have tried to explain other views to you.
I'm not sure what you point in posting was, but it seems like you aren't interested in "our" responses, since you didn't respond to many of the specific points made.
You can repeat and summarize your position another dozen times, but it doesn't change the reality which is that the "content" that you place your ads adjacent to (the search engine listings) HAVE to take precedence because it's that content that brings the eyes to see your ads.
It seems to me like you're stuck looking at this through a very rigid single perspective, and not able to consider balancing the issues of various different players -- visitors, advertisers, google.
If you look only at ONE, you cannot possibly understand how it all works, so you'll simply stick with what you know -- heaving money at the problem you face. Heck it's your business, so it doesn't bother me.
Something you probably havent' considered is the way google does it now is obviously economically effective for advertisers and google itself. There's good reasons for that, which you may not be understanding.
Anyway, I imagine if you can spend 1 million a year on adwords, that you are making a significant profit. I don't understand why you are complaining.
Happy to engage in quality exchanges. You must admit that some of the previous responses only were aimed to ridicule my attempt to raise this issue.
Surely traditional rankings must stay, I simply aim for fairness in the showing of listings overall. My point is that traditional listings should a.) stick to the same PPC guidelines, or b.) google should allow PPC advertisers more ad space. I believe that both, traditional and PPC can co-exist, thus allowing for fair search results.
I do see google addressing this issue by seeking alternative ad channels to ‘just’ google search. Google is well aware that it’s commercial make up (no evil etc..;-) puts it in a tight spot with regard to number of ads and the actual ad presentation.
One note with regard to the SEO community. I believe that many take their right for top listings for granted. Please note that google is STILL a free service for the general public. Point is that some people in the SEO community have fallen for their own misconception that advertising should be free. Yet, they have no quarrels charging their own customers.
Happy to engage in quality exchanges. You must admit that some of the previous responses only were aimed to ridicule my attempt to raise this issue.Surely traditional rankings must stay, I simply aim for fairness in the showing of listings overall.
Ridicule? Maybe. I see it like this. Your position seemed so out of touch with a number of basic realities regarding the relationship between the medium content and the ads, that it's hard not to consider it at minimum uninformed, and at the other end, silly.
As for fairness, we (you, me, anyone else) can argue what's fair and not fair for the next ten years, and that doesn't change how the system works. Fairness is so subjective, it gets pointless.
As to the comment about seo people feeling entitled, yeah, I think that applies to some people, particularly those that don't quite get that it's a zero sum game -- someone has to be #1, and 2 and so on, and so there will often be millions who won't be.
I'm sorry, but I did find your original post ridiculous, and as a search engine user (I'm also an advertiser and publisher), I don't WANT more intrusive ads on serps. I use search engines to find things -- I have to live with the ads, and on occasion they are also helpful, but I'll use a search engine that minimizes intrusive ads over one that doesn't any day, all things being equal.
You talk about Google Adwords being a market, but don't seem to understand how this market works. The demand for your keywords has gone up, so they became more expensive. It's your competitors driving up the price, not Google. That's just the economic reality, and has nothing to do with "travelling first class". If your competitors can live with those prices but you can't, then something must be wrong with your business model. It's not Google's job to fix that.
There's also another factor that may make Adwords expensive for you: Landing page quality. This can also only be fixed by you on your own sites. You may think of it as another special type of "SEO". Several people here have recently reported interesting sucess stories in this area.
If one advertises for hundreds of various keyword combinations it would be foolish to believe that SEO tactics would drive the site into traditional top spots (and surely not for hundreds of websites).
There are many sites and site networks out there that do exactly this very successfully. You have not given a single reason why this should not be possible for you as well.
You have been very careful not to give us the slightest hint about the type of your business and the type of your sites. This means that it's very hard to give you any useful advice. We don't know whether your business model was doomed from the start, or whether you just built your sites the wrong way, preventing them from ranking in the normal SERPs. All we can say based on the information provided is that your demands against google are extremely unrealistic.
If joke=pathetic it is.
[edited by: Khensu at 2:09 pm (utc) on Aug. 14, 2006]
From a business perspective, I'd suggest that wired-in-asia wouldn't actually be happy if his paid ads were more salient.
Let's say that paid ads are made more obvious and intrusive. What happens? The major impact is that CTR goes up. That means that wired ends up paying more, but also gets more traffic.
But, whether that traffic generates revenue is another question. My bet is that by making the ads more salient, the proportion of tire-kickers will go up, and the quality of the traffic in terms of producing revenue will go down. So in effect, the odds are that ROI will drop.
Which is one reason why google doesn't make the ads more salient, because it's not necessarily in the interests of the advertiser.
But is he?
His language is very grey and he doesn't respond directly to a question. Very agressive yet keeps covering himself by re-explaining his viewpoint and only offering jibes in rebuttal.
[edited by: Khensu at 3:54 pm (utc) on Aug. 14, 2006]
You believe that most people use the internet to buy things, I think you are wrong, if the ad's started to take up more space, yes people would click on them more, but as soon as they found it was yet another sales page they would click back again, costing you a lot more money, and probably in the long run resulting in a negative ROI, as has already been mentioned.
Also Google analyses everything, they know that the present size of there ad is perfect, because on the internet people have a very short attention span and read information quickly, if the ad was any longer the majority of users wouldn’t even read your whole ad and once again you would be receiving more untargeted visitors.
In summary find alternative sources of traffic or advertise in other media apart from the internet.
[edited by: MrBreakEven at 4:14 pm (utc) on Aug. 14, 2006]
I muted my speakers afterwards.....
PPC ads do not receive more, or even the same coverage, as many top 1-3 'traditional' rankings
This is likely for the exact same reason that I don't have to watch 5 minutes of commercials for every 5 minutes of a sitcom that I watch. That model - in where a 30 minute sitcome would take 1 hour to air - would seem to support the split, "50/50 approach" you seem to advocate for search. But it would never happen in TV .... the medium would never support that ratio.
However, it does happen in some print media. I used to write for a paid IT magazine that was 40/60 ads to content. That medium supported such a ratio. Other magazines in our vertical danced around that range as well. Why would print do better than TV in that regard? Perhaps because it's much easier to skip ads in print...
Anyway, the point is - in different advertising mediums, the market will (or will not) bear a certain ratio of content vs. ads. Google seems to have figured out the ratio that works well for them - as indicated by their quarterly revenue figures. Perhaps there is a market for you building the next search engine (A9 will let you search queries in bulk) that is evenly split 50/50 between organic and paid?
After I read through some of the comments in response to my first post, I only feel like stating my point again, as some of you completely missing the key point. Let me try this again, from a different angle though.
Facts:
1.) google started out as a business model. I.e. gets loads of visitors (stickiness/free listings), then invites advertisers (sealed bid process) etc.
2.) google's primary income comes at this point in time from adwords advertisers.
3.) google allows loads of 'free' ads/listings through smartly SEO engineered websites. How far these sites contribute to the user experience is a matter of opinion. These free listings compete (under my keywords) directly against me.
CPC’s over the last few years are steadily on the increase. Looking at our historical data cost of client acquisition through ad words comes now close to a point where it is no longer economical viable. In an ad environment where PPC expenses can overnight now lead to negative cash flow (i.e. can become a liability), I consider it only normal that I seek the max. ROI on my ads. It is for this reason that I am suggesting a re-think of ads space or free listing presentation. Options I suggest are:
1.) re/down-seizing of traditional listings (less text) to match paid ads or
2.) same size for PPC ads as for traditional listings (i.e. more text for ads)
3.) either of the above in conjunction with better monitoring of traditional listings who cover position 1/2/3 (top ranks) under various/different domains, as these ‘ads’ are for free.
There are surely other alternatives. Over to you guys….
Whilst I strongly think that everyone should have an equal right to SEO listings, I feel as you do, that the paid listings are given a non-equivalent display - surely, it would make sense for the paid listings to have a larger amount of visible advertising space - not less. A good analogy to this would be a telephone directory, where everyone has the right to a listing, however if you are willing to pay you can place a larger advert.
Perhaps another solution would be to have a continuously rolling set of adverts. ie if there are currently 30 paid listings, as soon as you get to page four on the search engine the sponsored advertsers disappear. Why not continue the sponsored adverts ad infinitum starting at page four and repeating the sponsored searches all the way through. Don't know if that makes any sense, but would be interested to hear any responses.
As long as you keep confusing search engine listings with ads, any point you're trying to make is just... pointless.
I guess that your biggest single issue is your cost of acquisition per sale?
Can I tell you that this was, IMHO, the biggest killer of the early dot.coms, plus I 've also felt the pain of very high PPC costs, this is why I am now desperately trying to learn SEO,
Note the following
a, Online businesses don't have a phyical street presence to provide continous presence for their potential customers to see erm regularly
b, A very busy search engine or portal like Google/Yahoo/MSN is the closest online equivalent
c, People folk to these place to follow their interests, an they like to browse without feeling pressured to buy anything, they want to read free articles, view free pictures, watch free TV, video, an they want all the best offerings for free,
getting all these freeloaders to buy anything is a master piece of art & science,, An on this website,www, there are many Picasso's, Monet's, Galileo's, which why I am here digging :-)
d, Where google to give you more space
do you think people would continue coming to google?
Have you had a look at the ever popular MFA's? some could be
persuaded to advertise for you, you know :-)
Google's traffic is the golden goose, even if every adwords
advertiser stopped, that traffic would still be worth a fortune
Point is, they like your money, but perhaps the consequences of
braking their business model for you
e, If you spend such a gigantic sum with them, why haven't you
negotiated a fixed deal with them, they are a business you know
By the way, the amount off spend that sent me to SEO in probabely minuscle to you, but the principle ought to be the same, learn SEO, buy SEO or negotiate with google if they'll listen
The other thing is, I just thought, not every product can be profitably marketed via PPC
I accept the constraints imposed on my ad copy - rules of the game - it would be nice to say more, but this would mean less chance of being on the 1st few pages.
Natural SEO results are what Google is all about - to me and most users. I beleive about 98% of users are not interested in sponsored links.
The quality of the left hand side / SEO / "natural" search results does seem to have dropped off significantly though. I do no see many spurious results - clearly from sites that have learned how to "do SEO" and are competing with AdWords. Before I used Adwords (2 months ago) if I searched for my domain name - I got 7 hits - 2 were pointing at my site. Now I get about 260 - less than 10 point to my pages - but most present my Adcopy and URL in the search results! This is surely unreasonable and not the direction I expect Google to go.
As long as you keep confusing search engine listings with ads, any point you're trying to make is just... pointless.
While I don't agree with the original poster on every point, surely no one that does SEO or online advertising believes that free search results obtained through optimizatiom are not a form of advertising?
For commercial terms, many free listings are designed to make the company money at some point, do people really believe this not to be the case?
Sorry, but wrong. PBS comes to minds, as do HBO, Showtime, Cinemax,...
PBS is driven entirely by donations and I've seen plenty of PBS shows with "sponsors". Toyota sponsors a show I watch on occasion.
HBO, Showtime, etc are premium channels that you must pay for in addition to basic cable and more and more shows use product placement heavily from big corporate sponsors.
Basically, they ain't free.
1.) re/down-seizing of traditional listings (less text) to match paid ads or
2.) same size for PPC ads as for traditional listings (i.e. more text for ads)
Your points 1 and 2 or pretty much the same thing. Equal size for Traditional Listings and PPC Listings.
Google Search (Traditional Listings) is what made Google popular and opened the door for Adwords. It came first and without it there is no Adwords. If you were to split the page equally between SERP's and Adwords nobody would use Google anymore. Surely you can understand this.
Do you not think that Google has thought about increasing the size of there PPC Ads? I took part in an Adwords Beta test for bigger size ads (approx double the size Title and Description) about a year ago and nothing ever came of it. Why do you think that is? Because users of Google Search would never put up with it and would leave in there millions.
I think why your receiving a bit of stick about this post is that you keep repeating yourself that Adwords should have the same exposure as the SERPS. This would be commercial suicide for them - Google knows it, we all know it, but you don't seem to. Do you really believe that Google hasn't spent millions researching what the best size ads for it's advertisers are that it's searchers will put up with? You have been given many examples - 30 minute TV show with 30 minutes of ads in it. It doesn't work so they don't do it!
Maybe in your next post try not just repeating yourself. Maybe explain why you think it would work, why it would benefit advertisers and benefit Google and you will probably get a more considered response.
The SERP positions (whether resulting from SEO or other causes) are a form of exposure, just as advertizing is a form of exposure. That doesn't mean that all kinds of exposure are advertizing.
2.) google's primary income comes at this point in time from adwords advertisers.
So now all who built the Google empire for the last decade are now second rate in the name of holy cash.
This is the major flaw in your thinking.
CPC’s over the last few years are steadily on the increase. Looking at our historical data cost of client acquisition through ad words comes now close to a point where it is no longer economical viable. In an ad environment where PPC expenses can overnight now lead to negative cash flow (i.e. can become a liability), I consider it only normal that I seek the max. ROI on my ads.
My response to you may seem a bit harsh. If it's the case that it is no longer economical to make the PPC system work for you, I'm going to suggest that the failure is at YOUR end, both in your inability to make it economically workable (PPC), AND your inability to build sites that rank well in the natural listings.
Not everyone succeeds at this stuff.
I'd suggest to you, in terms of business advice, that if you hit the ppc wall, and the serp wall, you need to radically overhaul what you are doing in your Internet business OR, get out of the business.
I'm suggesting these options because based on the little you've posted, you don't seem to have a good grasp of search engines, their function, purpose, WHY and how your potential customers might use them, etc.
It doesn't sound to me like your are in a position to understand your potential customers who are users of search engines, and that, in itself suggests there is a knowledge or competency gap at your end. That's FATAL in online business.
So the solution to your business problem is learn, close the gap, OR get out and find other ways to make a living.
Pengi wrote that 98% of traffic comes from traditional links. I don’t agree. How much traffic one receives from PPC ads probably varies greatly on what one sells. In our business Ad Words do generate loads of traffic and revenue as we sell thousands of products to a global audience. SEO is simply not an option as it would be naďve to believe that the hundreds of sites we have would list under the top 5 under each separate product/keyword combination.
I also truly believe that most AdWords advertiser don’t do their homework with regard on ROI. At the same time, daily I see new/fresh advertisers throwing their money into the wind by aiming right for the top spots with outrages bids. Adding the whole issue of click through fraud, google was a very different ad environment when we started advertising over 4 years ago. With regard to confusing ‘ads’ with ‘traditional’ listings: in our industry ALL traditional listings are commercially driven. And that is traditional listings rank 1-50 at least.
I believe that google surely has an interest in keeping long term, well paying advertisers. One suggestion I have is that google may want to reward long term advertisers with more ad space or special recognition. This could be done in the form of different shading or as previously suggested more ad space. This would also work well for potential buyers as the ad would identify us as an established/google recognized advertiser.
This is neither what I wrote, nor what I intended. I believe that 98% (or more) Google searchers who see one of my Ads ignore it - i.e. less than 2 % of impressions convert to clicks.
I suspect the vast majority of people who use Google as a search engine NEVER click on a sponsored link.
Nevertheless, to date, well over 90% of my traffic has been from AdWords Links.
So you want Google to give you a "free space" or a "leg up" because you spend $$$,$$$+ and deserve some kind of edge over others.
That is your basic thrust, you are just shrouding it in covert arguments with no real "market sensible" reality in your viewpoint.
