Relentless

[Quantam Goose]

I have observed prices for keywords incrementally go up every week like clockwork. .05 here .10 there - it is never ending. [Over the last 6 months] In my area there are no new competitors, in fact there is a drop off.I am almost at the point of hoping a given keyword DOES NOT CONVERT very well because that is a sure fire predictor of keyword minimums going up.

Secondly, Yahoo has now SURPASSED google in roi no matter how I measure that. Same ads, same landing pages, same keyword attributes. I continue to keep my toe in the water, just a little bit with Google, just to see how far they can go.

[JChang]

If you're referring to minimum bids going up, thats based on Quality Score and completely independent of competition.

I recommend going to the AdWords Help Center and read up on minimum bid increases and what you can do about it.

Also, I recommend having someone who is experienced with AdWords to take a look at your account to see what you can improve on. Or alternatively you can ask Google if they have any suggestions.

[exmoorbeast]

Google bids are on the rise, have been for 2 years. Nothing to do with QS

[Quantam Goose]

With all due respect, I have been using adwords for over 2 years and have the required "kiss my Privacy" pages, correct imbeded keywords, specialized landing pages, site depth, etc. All the "nuances" that have been discussed and talked about here. I was reffering to my site that ranks high in the organic listings across all search engines, and has been static for the last six months. Without doing anything, the creep is like clockwork. Every two weeks minimum, a bump of .05 and sometime.20. The fact that it is so predictable is what is telling about google. Behind all the "blather" about quality, ranking, inbound links etc. there is a simple "we must grow our revenue" factor at work here. The rest is noise and will drive you quite crazy trying to out "nuance" Google.

[chief72]

Don't worry there should be another monster search engine along any minute now. They'll love and look after us, we'll make them billions (and stick a few bucks in our own pockets along the way). How happy we all shall be, then they'll go public - DOH!

[JChang]

If you're just referring to having to up your bids to maintain the same position, its exactly because of what was said above; prices are increasing due to competition.
If you're talking about your minimum bids creeping up, its could be a variety of reasons, I wouldn't be able to tell you without looking at your account specifically, but I can tell you that it has nothing to do with how well you rank organically.

However, I'd be happy to take a look at your account if you wanted to talk through PM.