New Google Quality Scores

I don't know what to think about this one:

a) they're trying to match MSN's feature with the "bid required for top placement"

b) they're trying to maximize revenue from dormant keyword inventory in accounts that just leave active adgroups with "inactive for search" keywords (lots of low hanging fruit there)

c) maximize revenue from every single search query by "dynamically" determining actual CPCs more specifically based on QS.

Still reading the FAQs from the end....

They really could have made things more clear in the document.

"First page bids" replacing "min bid" - They don't mention what would happen if I lowered my bids to below the first page bid figure. I would hope I'd show on page 2, but it's not clear. Time to call the reps about this one.

They have just dumped another truck load of dirt into the already murky AdWords waters. It's a good from an industry point of view as I can see more and more self managed account being handed over to agencies.

PS. FAQ's link doesn't work for me. Anyone have a copy?

What about the example they give that highlights geography. Does this mostly apply to advertisers that don't carefully segment their campaigns by region? My stuff is split between north america, western europe/australia and rest of world to allow for more careful management of click costs and conversion rates.

Is Google going to now do this for me?

Yet again it's another way of raising the average income Google receives per click without saying "we're raising advertising costs"...

Is anyone foolish enough to think that this Quality improvement would not generate more revenue for them?

I think they are diluting the QS slap thing. The slaps must have cost them revenue so this new dynamic thing, where keywords will keep getting activated now and then and generate additional revenue for G.

So really, all those who deactivated keywords based on Low QS, better put them back in..

So each of us will now see a first page bid that will be calculated on quality score basis. if it is really going to be that way, it'll save us a lot of time on testing.

Obviously I can't say for sure yet how this will all play out, but I've read over the announcement about six times so far, and what I take from it is that it will be a very good thing. Should even help some of the legit advertisers who have been Google-slapped in the past.

Now, if they could just get someone to translate their help docs and messages from Googlespeak into Humanspeak...

I agree with Netmeg. This should knock loose the $1, $5 and $10 min cpcs that have plagued many legit businesses and keywords that will convert. Will Google make more money of this? Yes. But so will I.

Can't discuss the changes too much yet; but when they are done - things will actually be more transparent and simpler.

I'm looking forward to the final implementation on these changes, which might not be for a little while still.

I'm hope netmeg and fenway are right about this ridding of us the pesky $5 and $10 min bids.

To bad they could'nt have also given us some updated reporting features with this QS update. They "recommend taking the time to optimize the keywords in your account that have low Quality Scores" but still don't provide a report that includes Quality Score status.

I agree with Netmeg. This should knock loose the $1, $5 and $10 min cpcs that have plagued many legit businesses and keywords that will convert. Will Google make more money of this? Yes. But so will I.

IMHO: the inactive for search $10 min bids will translate to $10 first page bids, with no impressions and no clicks.

Keep in mind, however, that keywords previously marked 'inactive for search' are not likely to accrue a great deal of traffic following this change. This is because their combined per-query Quality Score and bid probably isn't high enough...

This is what i am concerned about:

It's worth mentioning that the impact of these changes will vary from advertiser to advertiser; some might see no changes to their ad serving, while others may see a noticeable difference...

I’ve seen the above statement in the past... days before slaps were handed out on several occasions…

Well this sounds like it could be extremely cool. On the other hand every QS change so far has either a) not affected me, or b) increased my overall costs. Somehow I doubt that's going to change, but here's hoping..

$10 min bids may translate to $10 first page bids for many. Im sure Google intends to still make it very difficult for questionable business models and suspect ads to be on the first page. My hope is that this is their attempt to no longer, automatically, group everyone in this category out of the gates and allow those with quality ads to at least accumlate data at a reasonable cpc.

I'd add that the most significant part of this announcement is that advertisers will now know what it takes to be on page 1. Advertisers always react better to the known, and now they (and specifically non-technical business managers controlling ad budgets) know what it takes (or at least *think* they know) to get more volume, and they’ll react by bidding up to get 1st page and then hope their ROI allows for it or can get there. For the industry as a whole, the importance of conjoined SEM & conversion optimization efforts is now much clearer to owners of marketing budgets.

Also, doing away with the 'Inactive for Search' designation means advertisers wono't know if their keyword isn't warranting exposure on O&O and network traffic, thus forcing advertisers' to live/die by 'First page bid'. This, too, will increase competition for all of page 1 inventory = higher costs for the inventory we all care about most.

Lastly, Google getting to real-time and query-specific Q.S. just means their optimization math is likely to take more of the monetization increase oppty off the table. Faster, more complete math = more $$$. For advertisers, this means the need for better keyword mgmt platforms becomes more acute, as does the need for more conversion optimization. [For all you folks managing large keyword sets manually, I feel bad for the pain you'll be feeling soon on top of the pain of managing keywords manually already.]

I'm wondering why they waited until after the close of SES San Jose to announce this? Seems to me that they could have used it as a good PR coup and helped the core of the SEM community out in one fell swoop.

I wonder how Google will calculate QS "on the fly"?

I've believed for some time that they probably calculate smart pricing on the fly, so why not QS?

I really hope they don't use the smart pricing (logic) for QS. Smart pricing seems to run in cycles and seems to depend upon some knobs being turned..either automatically or..

This QS on the fly hopefully will be more dynamic and logical, based on CTR, keyword relevance, Location focus etc etc ..We can only hope.

well add me to the list hit by this. Old account going back years and all my keywords are shut down asking for $10. Much of the keywords are ones that I rank in the top three organically but I'm not good enough for ads? Oh well. I spend thousands a month on Adwords and now it'll be nothing for the foreseeable future.

well add me to the list hit by this. Old account going back years and all my keywords are shut down asking for $10. Much of the keywords are ones that I rank in the top three organically but I'm not good enough for ads? Oh well. I spend thousands a month on Adwords and now it'll be nothing for the foreseeable future.

Sorry to hear that. It seems like you are the first reported victim. :( Copy your site to a new domain and try again...

I hate when google gives out slaps on weekends.

leave evrything intact for a few days adamxcl there still switching over to the new qs

Hmmm, not convinced this will be a good thing.

So let me get this right ...

If they suddenly tell me that 'min first page bid' is 0.60, how do I know what the min bid is to keep my keyword actually active, and on the 2nd-3rd-4th etc page? So if I were to bid 0.01 on my keywords they will always be shown, just very much down the Ad Rank?

Or is it guess work? Will some of my keywords not be shown if the bids aren't high enough? If so, this would mean having to constantly going into my account and checking all keywords to see if they are actually receiving impressions - very very time consuming.

They may show for some searches, but they may not show for others. If you want to have a good shot at showing for everything, you have to aim for that first page bid.

Whatever happened to all those people on the WebmasterWorld AdSense forum who were making good money from AdSense and always took it upon themselves to defend each and every change to AdWords as a positive development for the SEM community?

I don't seem to hear them anymore...

I think even if you bid the KWs at $10, you will not be displayed all the time.. Keep in mind, Google makes money when the ad they display is clicked on. SO I bet they will use some kind of logic that determines what will make more money for them, a KW with $10 cpc or a $5 KW with twice the ctr? If I were them I would pick the latter, as it also means the other KW is more relevant and clickable. Google must show that they are driving traffic for their advertisers as much as trying to make money themselves..

[edited by: PPC_Consultant at 10:09 pm (utc) on Sep. 4, 2008]

I still have keywords tagged as Inactive. But now even my active keyword are not generating ANY impressions since September 1. Is there something I need to do since this new Quality Score thing went into effect? What could cause a complete shut out?

I still have keywords tagged as Inactive. But now even my active keyword are not generating ANY impressions since September 1. Is there something I need to do since this new Quality Score thing went into effect? What could cause a complete shut out?

It is hard to speak to the zero impressions on active keywords, based on this very minimal information, Widestrides - but please note that the Ads Quality changes being discussed in this thread have not yet launched - except to a very small number of advertisers, as was mentioned in the blog post linked-to in the first post.

If you still have keywords tagged as 'Inactive for search', then you are not one of the advertisers in the very limited initial launch.

AWA

Thanks AWA. I figured out what has gone wrong. Some glitch created two bogus campaigns with gibberish for ads and keywords and generated huge impressions and clicks and charges, so I guess my account was suspended, but I heard nothing. I just emailed support.

:( Copy your site to a new domain and try again...

I wonder how many times you can do that before you wake up one day and can't login to your adwords account.