[adwords.blogspot.com...]
There will be a quality score column in the adwords interface which has been in beta testing for some advertisers to show how Google perceive the quality of a given keyword & ad combination.
Also an update to the quality score algorithm which is concerned with predicting lower quality ads better, dropping rank and increasing the costs on those poor ads and making it easier / less costly to get a new high quality ad into the listings.
Stay tuned. Have a nice weekend!
I hope they aren't comming with a sort of "over-optimization" penality :(
I think there is a penalty for heaving over optimized landing pages/ads.
I think if you have your keywords all over the place like: ad-title, ad-body/description, page-title, page-metatag, page text. You will get flagged as "spam" or low quality.
I also see that my compains that didn't get penalized are way less optimized in ads/landing pages. keyword in the ad title, no keyword in the ad body, no keyword in metatags, only one occurrence of the word in the landing page with a lot of supporting text.
I have some keywords that have gone inactive today, but if I search Google, my ads are still showing!
Same here. What's going on?
Don't get to exited even though your ad still shown for an inactive keyword, the ad will most likely run in slowed mode and by the end of the day you will have way less clicks/impressions that you had a day before. (especially if you run large traffic volume compains)
A conversion in this particular case is the user signing up for something that they just searched for, or making a purchase. And Google knows these numbers because I let their conversion tracking system track my conversions.
Sounds as if you have a good point then. I have heard rumours that G uses any conversion tracking data they are given and that it can count against you (i.e. they hammer the keywords that convert for you!) I've always found this hard to believe, but it seems as if your case supports the view.
Just wanted to jump in, however, and say that what is occurring for some of you is not related to next week's changes, and is currently being investigated as a priority.
AWA
My biggest keyword, THE biggest keyword for my industry, for the site that I spend over $3 million a year with on Google, has gone inactive with a min bid of $10. I am in the top 5 for the organic listings for this very big keyword.
I have been advertising over 2 years on this word for this site. The keyword is so relevant to my site that it would be completely impossible to get any more relevant. The group, landing page, even my url is perfect for this keyword.
But Google now wants $10. Like I told my rep, this better be a joke.
I'm seeing:
"outdoor widgets" QS: Great, min bid $0.03
"outdoor widget" QS: Poor, min bid $10.00
I aggressively bid for these terms to be top 5, long history with decent CTR but there's no way anyone will bid $10 for those keywords.
Everyone should sit tight for awhile and see what happens next week.
Another good one. Very high volume, very relevent keyword. Bid has been at 75 cents for awhile, with the ad hovering around position 3-4 right where I want it. It went inactive and it tells me I need to bid $1, so I did. Now my ad is being shown at #1 in the blue box. Doh doh doh doh.
Surely they must know if they keep this up, people will just set-up new adwords accounts with a whole new CC # and start the process all over again. This time, they will keep the conversion tracking off and put in their own conversion tracking tools to not be caught into this score trap.
Thus far I have filed 3 complaints with them over the phone. In addition, I have even lowered my bid and my overall campaign budget.
AWA and company, please deliver the message.
the ad hovering around position 3-4 right where I want it
Any official statement on what's happening will be highly appreciated. Nearly 10% of my keywords are inactive at the moment.
1. MOST IMPORTANT PIECE OF NONSENSE - "free widget" is Great (min bid $.04), "widget sample" great (min bid $.06)BUT "free widget sample" is Poor, at a min bid of $10.00! NOTE: Quotes are to denote keyword, not a phrase KW, I use all 3 types and generally they are all the same min bids with very few rare exceptions.
2.I can see this is in the infancy b/c I have the kw CoverGirl as great but Cover Girl as Poor, $10.00. I use CoverGirl on the landing pages
3. I am having the same quirks with plural and singular, with a difference of $.10-.15 for one and $10.00 on the other
ok, 3 cents. I do like that I can see what words are OK, Good and Poor. But for the most part the Algo does not show any consistency at all.
On a side note YSM are talking more keywords from me than ever before so If I get devastated again in the next week perhaps YSM financial difficulties will mitigate some of google's arrogance,lol
Cheers ... Google does not make it easy!
Tools > Advanced Search > Find and Edit Max CPCs
Now run a query to show the inactive keywords only.
I've been monitoring this and they have gone crazy all the morning. Now seems a bit stable, but I check every 30 minutes and the next time I check I have like 50-100 more keywords inactive, and sometimes it goes backwards reactivating keywords.
Seem someone's pet is playing with the keyboard on the adwords computer's control panel!
Hey, Google allow dogs in the office, not monkeys! LOL
A conversion in this particular case is the user signing up for something that they just searched for
I skipped the "making a purchase" part. But the signing up part definitely doesn't mean anything.
I see people competing in my niche with ads like "free widget info" or "free widget supplies". (Those freebies being digital giveaways of sorts.) The landing page promises the freebies once you sign up. And when you do sign up, you are prompted with offers for anything from viagra to electronics, nothing to do with widgets.
But the landing page is really relevant (to widgets) and makes it seem like the site is about widgets.
And that IP address hosts dozens of sites like that for different niches, so I'm guessing that's that guys business model.
He seems to always be near the top of the listings, so the conversion must be good. And quality score doesn't seem to be affecting him much.
Even today, I see his ad out there while half of the other competitors are not showing.
So unless money changes hands, conversion doesn't mean anything as far as relevance or "goodness" goes.
ADDED:
Not to mention, I see other people advertising really free giveaway. Not sweepstakes or surveys. They actually say get your free widget tool here. Widget tools costing from $200 and up. And apparently, there are many people who believe they can get a free widget tool that's worth hundreds of dollars just by signing up with their e-mail address. Those guys should have conversion really high. But if it turns out you must buy $2000 of other stuff to get your free $400 widget tool, while the ad and the landing pages dind't mention any of that (aside from fine print on a page that's linked from the landing page), how can you talk about quality?
I wish google would deal with people like that instead of hitting people with honest sites. Maybe they are aiming for that type of stuff, but they are not doing a good job, yet.
Here's the message I received when I pinged the tech folks, which basically confirms that what some of you are experiencing is a tech issue that will be addressed as quickly as possible.
Thanks for all of the reports. This is a technical issue - we've now identified the problem and expect to have this resolved soon. Please note that this is unrelated to the Quality Score update that we plan to release next week.
So, please accept my apology for the upset this has caused - but please don't mistake this for the Quality Score update to come.
AWA
### Google's new slogan ###
"Do no Eval" (Evaluation) ;o)
[edited by: inbound at 8:59 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2007]
AWA, if you could post and let us know when things are "fixed" it would be well appreciated. That way will know that if we have issues they are related to our account and not to a more global problem.
Now need to wait for the update next week.
Do you think this was the update, but just released by mistake?
or is it going to be even worse next week?
Just so that I dont get too comfortable, has anyone seen words that remained active even though "Poor" change to "Great"?
This is based on observations on a few client accounts, averaging 1% of keywords going inactive each hour, now sitting at 15%.
So I'd estimate 15 hours if the fix goes at the same rate as the problem.
Added: The accounts total around 100,000 keywords so we expect it to take a while, others may be lucky if they have fewer keywords.
AWA: any idea how long this is going to last?
AWA, if you could post and let us know when things are "fixed" it would be well appreciated.
Do you think this was the update, but just released by mistake?
A longer answer would be that I have been informed by the tech folks that this issue is entirely unrelated to the Quality Score update coming next week.
AWA
<added> Ahhh, I see that inbound answered the second question above very nicely, beating me to the punch! </added>
[edited by: AdWordsAdvisor at 9:32 pm (utc) on Feb. 16, 2007]
(Now I just gotta figure out something to tell my clients)
