I have a buddy that owns a site that rank's in Google for multiple single keywords between 1 and 2 and has the top for many other in phrases. he still spends money on Google but he never bids 5.00 to 7.00 for number 1 spot that his keywords would require. he's in the 1-2 range. still spends about 100 per day, but he's now chasing creative phrases.
he spent his money on SEO's and link development. don't ask for a sticky for the site, I don't need him scraped.
when I see a long term user of this site saying that he's dropping ( or extremely reducing ) is advertising allocation to Google then I'll think there is a problem
I've dropped hundreds of clients spend on Google. If 3 years a member here is considered long term then maybe you'll think there is a problem ;-)
JAG
problem is that, these high bidders have very worthless sites. also, their just might be another problem.
if you bid high on a keyword to bring a visitor to your site so they can click on another add ( which most likely is another 3rd party and not the manufacturer), who wins. certainly not the manufacturer, he dropped a fortune competing against you for the top slot, and in the long term he's going to drop Google. so what is Google doing, making your cost go up and the manufacturers go down, this way the long term player stay around. I think this is where the quality score comes in and the rust factor comes in.
Mojomike
I would hope that you route that money into R&D efforts
The money was just routed to the MSN and Yahoo! networks.
I have mixed feelings on the quality score being good or bad. But what I do know is that there is little room for waiting around for prices to go back down someday...maybe.
JAG
if you are going to play that game then you are going to need to create multiple sites and have one search engine deliver to another search engines advertisers, it's the only way to break that chain. IE Google search to your page that shows yahoo ad's and visa verse
I would think that all search engines would want to kill off the MFSE sites since their is nothing of real value to them.
it's all about quality content, at least that's what I believe.
hey by the way, I did my first AdWords buy ( not a lot of money ), but it's working HURRAY.
where the search engines are trying to kill the ARB. game
I've not ever played that game but I've seen it done very well by folks over the years. IMHO the only thing the quality score will do is rotate those game players out faster so instead of having the same ones there all the time it'll just be new ones coming and going. There's always someone who thinks they can game the system. I'm guessing the quality part of the quality score will be doomed to failure but the financial part of it will make Google more money than it ever has before.
I did my first AdWords buy ( not a lot of money ), but it's working HURRAY
Congrats and continued success to you!
JAG
I had used adwords for over three years, spent lots of money and made some money. I have spent the last five months fighting the quality score issue and during that time I found from an advertisers view their seems to be no logic to it at all. I would finally get an ad that would pass the score, but each time google would creep up the price for my best keywords, some getting 5% ctr. It finally became a losing battle. I would much rather spend time on growing my business than fighting a losing battle with a company that thinks they know my business better than I do.
Yahoo Search marketing is not perfect but they treat me like a business partner. I have a direct number of someone I can call when I need help. My ROI has gone from 13% to a steady 130%+ in three weeks. I should have dropped adwords months ago.
Just sharing my experience.
So I simply adjusted. I now spend 70% less on Google per month and only on those ads and kwds that make some financial sense. The difference goes to MSN and some useful postings on eBay. Actually I get a better ROI by eBay refferals than either Google or MSN.
[And yes I have a quality site. My organic results on Google are good and outstanding on MSN and Yahoo.]
The single most telling factoid that has been detailed on this forum regarding Google algorithymic changes is the simple case where someone was bidding on a kwd with ZERO competitors. No other ads showed for a period of two weeks, and Google demanded a $5.00 per click rate.
That, ladies and gentlemen, makes no sense whatsoever (for Google or the advetiser) and clearly indicates that the Google folks have offerred up too much incense to the God of algorithyms. It makes no difference if the ad led to an MFA site, a webcam of a russian toilet, or whatever. That kwd rating represents lost revenue to Google, lost expereince to the user, and lost opportunity for the advertiser. It simply makes no business sense. Google seems to have adopted the Marxist central planning concept whereby they want to make the decision for everybody what a usefull expereience is. If the ad sucks and/or the landing page is poor, the adveriser will not get revenue and eventually the market (or cost of money) will force him out.
[edited by: Quantam_Goose at 10:48 pm (utc) on Dec. 30, 2006]
I was forced out of adwords by about 95%. Left two little campaigns running.
Lately i've noticed my ads appearing in the top blue section. Additionally, occasionally I'm the only ad showing at all. Haven't seen this in Many months.
Did someone say the LPQ has to be pretty good for your ad to show in the top blue slots? Perhaps something is changing for the good?
sJWD: Chances are that the LPQ algo "overshot" and has been manually adjusted or has of its own accord moved back to be nearer the sweetspot. Goal-seeking algos can take a while, even in the absence of noise such as poor-quality new/existing advertisers trying to "work round" the fact that they are wasting the users' time and advertisers' money. Goal-seeking / optimisation / minimisation algorithms usually DO overshoot, else they cannot tell that they have gone too far.
Rgds
Damon
All these quitters make my business even more profitable. Keep throwing in the towel, like google cares.
:)
That same landing page showed up for the same kwd pair as position number 3 in the organic listing.
Case closed. That is when I said "Self - this is an arbitrary across the board price increase, that has nothing to do with magic, QS, number of ads, depth of content, or anything else. Time to think about alternatives"
[edited by: Quantam_Goose at 11:52 pm (utc) on Dec. 30, 2006]
Keep throwing in the towel, like google cares
I'm not sure how much I've helped divert away from Google exactly. Several million dollars for hundreds of clients perhaps...so no, they don't care when they are making billions. But, it was for the clients ROAS that it was done and not once was the thought of whether Google would care put into the equation.
More power to you or anyone else who can win because others have pulled out...at least until you get hit with the QS :-)
JAG
I love these threads!
All these quitters make my business even more profitable. Keep throwing in the towel, like google cares.
There are people here whos businesses have been destroyed because of this. You don't help them by pushing them deeper into the crap.
I spent 40k per month with G ( I know its peanuts to them) but I hope, I know there are lots of guys in same boat, thus all those 40k x 100#*$! will start to hurt in 2007. I now give that 40k to MSN who have better phone support, better conversions and are less inclined to mess with me.
2007 will, should be the year of some decent competion for G and I hope it starts to really really hurt, they need to know what it feels like, only way they will learn to put the customer first and cure some of that oppressive arrogance that has been building over the last few years.
But the realism here is that MSN will take your dollar (or should that be pound) and for the time being and then when you have made them enough money they will turf you out of the game as well...
I'd bet on this..
I have some reservations about Google AdWords long-term and the way that words are bidding up mysteriously. Example and as noted several times above:
Some SEM clients I've spoken with who are taking their own campaign work on in specific areas, have seen keywords inexplicably just from pennies to $10. And, that's within the same campaign where they are showing very similar subject (yet unique content) landing pages with "similar" terms and much lower rates; so, selective jumps.
Is this just jamming and competitive?
Those that have not been subjected to this in a massive way, be warned. You very well may be next. So don't laugh at those that got hit first.
In my opinion the quality score has very little to do with the user experience and a lot to do with
uping the price of keywords. If they landing page quality is poor, why show the ad any price?
That's easy:
Motivating a customer with the chance to pay lower bids (by improving the quality of his or her landing pages) is likely to be more productive, and to cause less pain and public furor, than simply banning the customer or the ads.
In other words, the customer is given the opportunity to make a choice instead of being shown the door.
So don't laugh at those that got hit first.
I don't laugh at those hit, but I do indeed feel sorry for people who lack even rudimentary understanding of how to run a business, and make the obvious and clear mistake of staking their business, income, financial health, etc on adwords, or, on any single means of advertising.
And I come back to the idea that it's the BUSINESS OWNER that makes the decision to live or die with adwords...it's the BUSINESS OWNER'S decision to make him or her vulnerable and helpless.
