Active Keywords Falling?

Just me or everyone?

[fischermx]

From the July attack, I left with 23,000 inactive keywords.
Today, I have 35,000. Traffic dropped 30% from what it used to be.
I wonder why there isn' a thread about this already?
Are too few advertisers affected this time?
What about you?

[sailorjwd]

I had about 23,000 active and today I have only about 12,000 active... something changed recently.

I also notice 6cent and 15cent min bids... when did that start?

[venrooy]

They are getting desperate now. My yahoo and MSN campaigns are quickly closing the gap w/ Google, and I'm not even trying to work on those campaigns. It's sad that Google has taken this turn for the worse, but at least MSN and Yahoo are picking up the money being shoved off of the table by Google.

[dlfolkerts]

I see a drop of 30% too. For me this a bigger hit than the July one. Though I see a shift in active and inactive keywords.
Does anyone have a strategy for improving the landingpage quality?

[fischermx]

Does anyone have a strategy for improving the landingpage quality?

Money, maybe?
For the Beatles, money can't buy you love, but what about quality?
Just raise your bids and you got instant quality!

[fischermx]

I also notice 6cent and 15cent min bids... when did that start?

I noticed that too. Google is struggling to get you an extra cent for those $0.05 bids and to raise your $0.10 to $0.15 ... in case you were too scared to jump to $0.20 they are trying to be softer ... yeah right...

[koncept]

Thanks to this posting, I have gone and taken a good look at my campaigns today. Sure enough, many miminum bids have been raised, but it is nothing like the two previous sweeps for me. Mainly, the raised minimums are on keywords that I chose to bring up to the previous minimum bid a few days ago.

Basically, I raised my inactive keywords to their minimum, and a few days later they say, "sorry, the minimum is now even higher."

They obviously don't want me bidding on these keywords, even though in many cases they are simply plural versions of currently running keywords, or instances where've i've run words together like, "bluewidgets".

I hate algorithms.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Yes, we've made a minor change - and I'll quote the folks most familiar with the details below:

The primary component of the change is that, in non-USD currencies, we've "rounded" many of the minimum CPC amounts so that they'll no longer appear as rather odd amounts - as requested by many advertisers, globally.

Note that this change effects 'lower quality ads' (i.e. those at high minimum CPCs) more than high quality ads - thus, for example, a keyword at 0.04 wouldn't have been rounded to 0.05, but a keyword at 4.14 would have been rounded to 4.00.

Related to this change, we've added more 'granular' minimum CPCs between $0.05 and $0.20, specifically at $0.06, $0.08, and $0.15. Some advertisers have been frustrated by the jump in minimum CPCs above $0.05, so this should help alleviate that frustration. As a result, some advertisers will see small increases in their minimum CPC, as has been noted in this thread.

Overall, this change is very small, although some individual advertisers may see bigger changes.

Please note that this is not related to landing page quality.

AWA

[dlfolkerts]

Thank you for your update, AWA. What do you mean with : ".. some individual advertisers may see bigger changes. Please note that this is not related to landing page quality. ".
In my account I see a major increase on some keywords (not low bid keywords). If it is not based on quality, then what went wrong with my account? Could you give a hint how I can solve this problem?

[fischermx]

AWA:
Do you mean me and sailorjwd got 12,000 inactive keywords just for rounding issues?

[netmeg]

Something weird is happening. I get reports sent to me in email every morning of any keywords that go inactive on any of my clients' campaigns. This morning, my emailed report showed that several clients had campaigns where a lot of words suddenly went dark. It was mostly low cost words where the minimum bid supposedly just went up a penny or two. But when I went in today to take a look, all the keywords on all accounts were active, and still at the original minimum bids. Nobody else has access to these accounts but me. I'm wondering if the reporting is off or the bidding is off.

[ltifwwc]

Some of my deactivated keywords [due to landing page quality] are still getting some impressions; however, conversion seems to be down.

Is anybody seeing that?

[Kobayashi]

Related to this change, we've added more 'granular' minimum CPCs between $0.05 and $0.20, specifically at $0.06, $0.08, and $0.15. Some advertisers have been frustrated by the jump in minimum CPCs above $0.05, so this should help alleviate that frustration. As a result, some advertisers will see small increases in their minimum CPC, as has been noted in this thread.

Is this change also limited to NON USD currencies and how does more 'granular' minimum CPC increases make advertisers less frustrated by CPC increases?

[edited by: Kobayashi at 10:55 pm (utc) on Sep. 6, 2006]

[fischermx]

AWA, please clarify this :

Related to this change, we've added more 'granular' minimum CPCs between $0.05 and $0.20, specifically at $0.06, $0.08, and $0.15. Some advertisers have been frustrated by the jump in minimum CPCs above $0.05, so this should help alleviate that frustration. As a result, some advertisers will see small increases in their minimum CPC, as has been noted in this thread.

Aren't there any other range in the higher cents that were added as well? I mean, something like $0.25 or $0.35?

See, I went to my account and using the keyword tool I selected all my keywords with current bid less or equal to $0.10 and inactive. Then I incremented them 1 cent.
Then I did that again, and again, and again, and again.
Five times, that's five cents. So, my inactive bids at $0.10 are now at $0.15.
Now, I had 23,000 keywords inactive, until this morning when I saw 35,000. After I raised the bids following the procedure above, I recover 2,000 keywords, having now 33,000 inactive.
That's 10,000 keywords where inactivated over the last night or two.
What is the reason for this?

[Atomic]

Related to this change, we've added more 'granular' minimum CPCs between $0.05 and $0.20, specifically at $0.06, $0.08, and $0.15. Some advertisers have been frustrated by the jump in minimum CPCs above $0.05, so this should help alleviate that frustration. As a result, some advertisers will see small increases in their minimum CPC, as has been noted in this thread.

Isn't it more honest to say something like, "We've raised our rates", instead of the above?

[Green_Grass]

AWA writes
"Yes, we've made a minor change "

CPC Rates up between 15 to 20% across the board for me. How is this change minor?

[sailorjwd]

I am so sick of these constant changes.

Seems like I'm playing a game with a school-yard bully who changes the rules every time I get ahead.

And, as for the quality score thing... I can't think of any other business where I pay (paid) them nearly a 1/4 million a year and get treated like poop.

If my account rep could indicate in what way my pages are falling short then I'd fix them. I've done everything in the guidelines.

I was told weeks ago that my site was going in for a manual 'review'. Did I ever hear a word from them about the results? No.

I even asked my account rep if G preferred that I not advertise on adwords. They immediately phoned and said we want to keep you as an advertiser. I don't believe them anymore.

[cornwall]

Note that this change effects 'lower quality ads' (i.e. those at high minimum CPCs) more than high quality ads- thus, for example, a keyword at 0.04 wouldn't have been rounded to 0.05, but a keyword at 4.14 would have been rounded to 4.00.

Interesting that AdSense calls $4.00 ads "lower quality" and $0.04 ad "higher quality"
:(

[DamonHD]

Hi,

Well, it may accidentally support the theory that G is trying to "price out" the bad ads/advertisers rather than ban them outright.

Rgds

Damon

[WW MemberName]

Hey All,
Yes I noticed a "change" in my Google account on the 1st of September. I see that are impressions are way down from the same period in August. And yes seems this is related to our UK account not so much our US account.

So I too see higher bids, but not like the July 17th attack. So why much lower impressions?

Thanks for any and all responses...

[Green_Grass]

"I am so sick of these constant changes. "

Currently there is no stability in the adWords experience. Every other day , Google is looking for new ways to make money. I guess the 'landing page quality' stuff did actually hurt their revenues and this is a new approach to grab more from existing advertisers. They seem to be bent upon squeezing as much as possible. You can only squeeze only so much....Everyday, I wake up and rush to check my a/c to see if they have done something new ...

[Need3lives]

Note that this change effects 'lower quality ads' (i.e. those at high minimum CPCs) more than high quality ads - thus, for example, a keyword at 0.04 wouldn't have been rounded to 0.05, but a keyword at 4.14 would have been rounded to 4.00.

Noticed that some of our keywords with click through rates in the 9-10% range were disabled as a result of this change, asking for us to raise our bids from around $0.06 to $0.15 to reactivate them.

Is a 10% CTR ad considered 'lower quality'?

[andye]

I am so sick of these constant changes.

Seems like I'm playing a game with a school-yard bully who changes the rules every time I get ahead.

Right - that's how it's been feeling for a while now. Didn't use to be the case, G seems to be showing a real disregard - seems at times like contempt - for its advertisers now.

best, a.

(not a G-hater at all - just disappointed. I first used Adwords when it was an interesting new alternative to Overture, and things were much better then).

[Manga]

You know, I used to complain about Overture and a lot of the things I had to put up with them in the past... but that is nothing compared to the crap Google is pulling.

At least Overture was always HONEST.

When they wanted more money they raised the minimum bid to 5 cents, and then later to 10 cents... simple and HONEST. There were no sneaky tactics and excuses to try and scam more money out of you. In fact, they showed COURTESY and RESPECT to their advertisers by GRANDFATHERING ALL LOWER BIDS. You knew the rules of the game at all times.

When you created a campaign it was annoying waiting for an editor to review it, and sometimes their decisions didn't make sense, but when an ad and landing page were approved it was done... end of story! The Overture system has always been HONEST!

With Google you have no information to base your business on. You don't know how long your ad will run and you don't know what you will have to spend. You can not rely on anything Google says today, because they have shown that they can and will change it tomorrow. Is this a relationship you can rely and count on?

[vphoner]

Some advertisers are already boycotting google. If this were done on a massive scale, google would have to listen to advertisers instead of bullying them and making the google adwords the most unstable advertising platform in human history. I think the whole quality thing has backfired and will have to be reversed in some manner. I hate the whole quality score BS. Its made google a roulette wheel for advertisers. Not something you can base your business on. Especially when determining whether to hire new employees or not., or expand your business. Its not a system you can rely on.

[sailorjwd]

"So why much lower impressions?"

I might have 20,000 active keywords from an original 100,000. Of those 20000 only about 500-800 get impressions anymore. All my keywords used to get impressions otherwise they got deleted. Even though keywords are marked as active they are Not active. so now you can not tell what is going on.

It is so bad now that i'll check a campaign of 2000 keywords and search for a few and realize that only 2 or 3 are showing on search consistently - and often those keywords are some of the weakest of the bunch.

I don't like to be a bellyacher and i am trying to move to MSN/Yahoo - i've had an overture account for years but don't use it since I get about 10 visitors a day. Adcenter is almost as bad but i'm still working on it.

[outland88]

What the frigging ____ is going on now with Google Adwords. I peek into my account today and 35% of the ads have gone inactive. It’s like some bean counter went through the stats and said lets add a penny here and a nickel there and we’ll get that much richer. Oh by God the US dollar is becoming worthless. I knew a month ago when they started doubling and tripling the suggested daily budget, for no apparent reason, they were out for more money. I guess they wanted to get these things out of the way before the November search results switch for Christmas.

Geez I’m sick of these Google people tinkering with something every five minutes. Their greed is astronomical.

[WW MemberName]

So that begs the question, if the keywords are active, why the limited impressions and resulting clicks? Again, I've only seen this behavior since September 1st.

[outland88]

I've been seeing a lot of shuffling since the second week of August wondering what it all meant. Obscure posts indicated some people were seeing it earlier in various degrees. Once I saw they dropped the number of ads under 100 results I knew these people were going to make a run for the money.

[pacweb]

My Google Adwords traffic dropped by 70%, totally unexpected, all at once on august 10th. Since then, I have promoting more expencive items on my site to make up the difference. And, I pay over quarter of a million dollars a year in Google adverting. My account rep. is a total idiot. I have been doing my own Adwords testing to see what works, with what I have left from my traffic.