What the heck is going on over at google? I even searched for a couple of my keywords on google and there are NO sponsored search results...
Anyone know whats up?
Whats going on? I still don't know. Almost like any ad running that domain was blacklisted or something, which would make no sense because my pages are legit, nothing against the terms, and if blacklisted google looses out on my thousands a month. Hmmmmmmm...
Suppose I should have expected yet another money grab given their recent stock price drop. Google are *#?*ing horrible to do business with and getting progressively worse.
...and before the shills jump all over me with the "Google just wants to improve user experience" drivel, let us just consider firstly the quality of the sites in their own search network (roi heading south rapidly) and secondly their broad..broad..broad matching.
I spend an average of 2k a month, my competitors probably spend more. Now that income has been lost, and it's their own fault. And my niche is not spammy or anything non legit...
Get your #*$! together google!
This morning all bids to 10 dollar. They updated the LPQ algoritm.
Goolgle Adwords > SOB! it killed my entire account last night! I was getting a great CTR, above 5% for the whole account. I was investing 8000 U$ monthly. I'm so disappointed now that i´m gonna retire from this joke.
If google thinks the way of recovering the money it`s loosing from the loss of profits and the drop on their share prices.. I think this is not the way to do it. All it is doing now, is more and more clients gradually.
Bye Bye Google, was great to work with you...
I'm still not paying it. Those KWs are now paused.
I do well enough in the serps for those KWs that I don't need to pay the price.
I was the victim of click fraud which originated at one of their search partners. The Google rep I spoke with was less than helpful, when I told them that I was just going to disable the search partner feature, all of a sudden, they were more cooperative. However, despite their warnings that traffic will decrease, I shut it off.
Doh! I want real traffic, not fraudulent clicks!
Clearly to me, quality score has a heavy component that is related to the overall site, a smaller component related to the quality of the ads and landing pages (the site that went from ok to great has not changed nor have the ads changed and its keyword scores have been ok for a year now).
About a month ago, we decided to use the domain we are running ads for, just for ppc. All our landing pages were located in a sub directory. I figured we dont need a main index page anymore so we might as well toss it, so it was deleted.
I was unaware that google takes into account the entire domain, even non landing pages to get a QS. I confirmed this with a rep last night. So I am assuming googles QS bot took a look at the main index page, and found nothing, hence lowering my QS accordingly. Needless to say I have switched domains and added a main index page, even if it's not being used by anyone.
I think the problem with google is they don't tell you what the problem is, they just penalize you with no warning. Microsoft has an interesting system in place, where if there is something wrong with your account, they will tell you what the problem is. Once that problem is fixed you can appeal the QS etc., and the system with visit your site again with 24hrs and update accordingly. Google simply says, wait until the next update which may take up to 1 month... absurd.
I think everyone who gets slapped has an error somewhere in the account that is causing it, they just don't know where to look. Google is shooting themselves in the foot by not communicating with their advertisers... they are loosing money from paying customers who do not know they have made an error.
Anyways I hope someone can learn from my mistakes besides me :)
If you have $10 bids go get another domain and copy your old one.. Try to add some unique content to it and maybe they won't kill you next time, but they probably will..
Here's a quick overview of what I've seen:
Site 1 info: Little/no info on index page. Datafeed information + affiliate links on product landing pages. Based on same model as site 2 below, but with diff. merchants.
Change: Almost double traffic.
Site 2 info: Exactly the same as site 1, but with different merchants/market.
Result: Almost all keywords now "poor", and £5 minimum bids.
Site 3 info: Site with {unique content on 30% of product pages. Unique, changing content on homepage. Privacy policy/contact us page/about us page}.
A clone of a site that got slapped about 6 months ago. Stuff in curly brackets done to avoid it happening again.
This is a sitewide quality score, as adding a new page about "blue widgets" immediately results in a poor QS.
Btw, just received an email from a friend working at an agency and he's had exactly the same thing. Hopefully google won't be able to sustain it's new level of revenue.
Bw3ttt, you hit the nail on the head mate. They may or may not slap you next time. I did a lot to stop it happening, and it ended up a poor game of russian roulette.
Time to buy some new domains and set up some new accounts :(
Yes just deleting the old campaigns and starting new ones with the new domain name. I found just switching the domain name in my ads for the existing campaigns does not update the quality score automatically, so don't bother.
It is easier to just do it in your existing account because of the feature that lets you copy a campaign when creating a new one. Just copy the old one, add the keywords and change the url in the ad copy and then delete the old one... done.
"Site 3 info: Site with {unique content on 30% of product pages. Unique, changing content on homepage. Privacy policy/contact us page/about us page}.
A clone of a site that got slapped about 6 months ago. Stuff in curly brackets done to avoid it happening again."
What was the result in this update? Did this site get hit again? Or was it spared because of your efforts?
Google need to get the message that it is no longer ok to treat us all like mushrooms.
I think the problem with google is they don't tell you what the problem is, they just penalize you with no warning. Microsoft has an interesting system in place, where if there is something wrong with your account, they will tell you what the problem is. Once that problem is fixed you can appeal the QS etc., and the system with visit your site again with 24hrs and update accordingly. Google simply says, wait until the next update which may take up to 1 month... absurd.
Very true.
The main 'vendor' who (I'm an affiliate of) is still there and
#2...
ASK.COM ... which is just doing arbitrage to their search results full of GOOGLE ADSENSE ON THE TOP.
All others are GONE. If Google is trying to clean up the results by getting rid of all the competitors, maybe its smart to show #2 as ASK - at least they still get paid (twice).
WHAT A JOKE!
Time to breakout all the Blackhat tools and go crazy on the niche.
OF COURSE I WILL CREATE A NEW DOMAIN, REDUPLICATE THE OLD ONE AND SETUP A NEW ADWORDS CAMPAIGN.
wow you are hard core... i feel like that's too much work..:)
its actually not that much work. took me about 20 mins to redo my entire account, consisting of 20 campaigns.
ill quote what I said above: "... the feature that lets you copy a campaign when creating a new one. Just copy the old one, add the keywords and change the url in the ad copy and then delete the old one... done. "
Some language and opened calls to non-valuable actions seem to be of no value.
Have been hit many times on many sites. Still see no reason for any hate.
Also, if some "cheat" idea is on the table, while not arguing with it, I see no point of making it so public, especially in the forum where we have few of AdWords' folks quite active.
Looks like expressing too much power as a sign of weakness and desperation.
smallcompany, while its true that adwords folks are active on this forum... if they know the system well enough.. they probably know that the approach of tricking the system will probably be handled eventually when the slap comes around again.
The approach you suggest and many do follow has one huge drawgback.
You lose history associated with an old account when you start afresh. It takes upto 2 months to regain a part of the traffic you were previously getting.. and just when you feel you have it made.. you get slapped again.
So It is infact better to find a way to meet the QS requirements as defined by google. I do know.. they define it very poorly and it is primarily a hit and miss kind of a scenario...
