It's a much crazier world these days.
1. If something does not kill you, makes you stronger..
2. It is not what happens to you, how you react to it..
3. Out of every bad thing, something good comes out of it..
Cheers!
;-)
The answer (from Google Adwords Help):
"Your keywords may be marked 'inactive for search' and stop showing your ads on search results if they don't have a high enough Quality Score and maximum cost-per-click (CPC). This is another way of saying that your keyword or Ad Group's maximum CPC doesn't meet the minimum bid required to trigger ads on Google or its search network partners. This typically occurs when keywords aren't as targeted as they could be, and the ads they deliver aren't relevant enough to what a user is searching for."
Your next question should be "What do I do now?" Well, that's where things get complicated. To start you off, here's Google's advice re: your options.
If your keyword is inactive for search, you have the following options:* Increase your keyword's Quality Score by optimizing for relevancy.
Optimization, which is a technique for improving the quality of your keywords, ad, and campaign, is the best way to increase your keyword's performance without raising costs. Try to combine your keyword with two to three other words to create a more specific keyword phrase. This will result in better targeting, and potentially, better performance. For example, make single keywords more targeted by turning them into descriptive phrases ('car' to 'car buying service'). You can also narrow your targeting options (such as to regional targeting) or matching types (like exact match). We also suggest adding your keyword to your ad text. Visit our Optimization Tips page for more suggestions.* Increase your keyword's maximum CPC to the recommended minimum bid.
Your keyword's minimum bid is the amount required to trigger ads on Google and is determined by your keyword's Quality Score. When your maximum CPC falls below the minimum bid, your keyword will be inactive for search. For this reason, you can simply increase your maximum CPC to the minimum bid to re-activate your keywords. Learn the different ways to increase your maximum CPC to the minimum bid.* Delete the keyword.
To start from scratch, you can simply delete all your keywords that are inactive for search. If you delete an inactive keyword and then add it back to your account in any other format or any other location (placing it in another Ad Group, for instance), our system will still take the keyword's past account-wide performance into consideration. A poor performer can affect an entire Ad Group and/or campaign, if it is used multiple times. For this reason, we recommend you regularly review your account's performance and either optimize your keyword or increase its maximum CPC to the minimum bid.* Do nothing.
Let the keywords stay inactive for search. If search behavior works in your favor -- such as if more users search for your keyword, thus increasing its relevancy -- your keyword might be re-activated. However, we recommend you choose one of the preferred options above to keep your keyword performing well and triggering ads.
Questions?
I'd rather not have this turn into "G is so hard now" apathy-fest. I'm trying to see if anyone has any specific ideas as to why my Min. Bid was jacked before I had 1000 impressions. Thanks!
Well, it's you Quality Score, Yes?
I'd rather not have this turn into "G is so hard now" apathy-fest. I'm trying to see if anyone has any specific ideas as to why my Min. Bid was jacked before I had 1000 impressions. Thanks!
Never figured that whole thing out. Maybe some sort of automatic flag for a manual review due to my profile or business segment?
Hope that helps. Mind you, I'm drawing on pre-QS info...the reason could be very different now.
Hmm.. not getting anything I can grasp on to take action.
If you ask specific follow-up questions, perhaps you'll get a more taylored response.
"Increase your keyword's Quality Score by optimizing for relevancy"
Yes this sounds good, but in reality when someone is searching for "Green widgets with screw tops" they are lazy and just type in "widgets". This is the problem what I've tried (unsuccessfully) to explain to Google, that we miss out on a lot of traffic by not allowing us to bid on “widgets” when I'm selling/promoting “green widgets with screw tops”.
Thanks for you input…..
[edited by: WW_MemberName at 2:15 pm (utc) on Sep. 7, 2006]
Don't waste too much time because you could be hit again with a higher CPC (or just inactive keywords) at any moment and with no notice. Time is too valuable to waste on a guessing game.
Think about it, Google is desperate and has nowhere to go but down, the bubble has popped, the stock is sinking and they are allowing their algorithms to churn themselves into irrelevance.
These new changes - the new bidding structures etc etc are driving us all up the wall. They say they want to improve the quality of the users - how can we do this when all our time is spent monitoring Adwords and trying to re-activate keyword hikes all the time. The mind boggles. Dabbling in MSN now - and after one month am starting to notice good things. However, for all of you thinking of going in this direction have a look at the MSN threads in WebmasterWorld - there are definate bugs in the system to watch out for!
