For poor QS they often state:
"Our system shows that users do not find your ad or landing page relevant when searching on this keyword."
How can they analyse how relevant users find a landing page without using this metric?
That said, I have some clients where I don't have any control over the landing page, and they have a pretty high bounce rate, but their QS is great. So maybe not. Landing page (and by extension bounce rate) is supposed to be much more of a factor in the Content Network than Search.
So it would seem that it's not a factor (yet).
[edited by: tedster at 11:54 pm (utc) on Oct. 16, 2008]
[edit reason] paraphrase email [/edit]
"Our system shows that users do not find your ad or landing page relevant when searching on this keyword."
That is a problem with QS as Google determines the QS of the landing page when it sends traffic to the page... the problem is that Google also determine who to show the advert to and therefore THEY control your quality score.
I noticed QS on some of my keyword groups drop to poor... and then I cross-referenced it with the traffic. I found the quality of the traffic poor while the relevancy of the landing page to the actual keywords was high.
QS is a double-edged sword that is controlled by Google and is ambiguously described as a mark of quality. As I said, the problem of quality is only called into action when the quality of traffic that is sent is examined. Poor quality traffic = lower QS = higher CPC = more revenue for Google.
QS is a double-edged sword that is controlled by Google and is ambiguously described as a mark of quality. As I said, the problem of quality is only called into action when the quality of traffic that is sent is examined. Poor quality traffic = lower QS = higher CPC = more revenue for Google.
It would appear to be this way since Google claims to assign quality score according to not only individual accounts and keyword relevance and their performance CTR-wise, but also historical performance of keywords across all advertisers. So if you happen to be in a niche where the majority of advertisers are being misleading (think some shadier affiliate marketers and made for adsense sites) then you get caught in the net because you're advertising on the same keywords. Granted Google has been weeding these people out of the game.
Understandably it would be very difficult for Google to look at QS on a case by case basis which is why they let their QS algorithm do the work, however, they should definitely invest in having the resources to conduct manual reviews for reputable and honest advertisers, since a lot of innocent bystanders are being affected by some of their QS updates.
Worst of all, advertisers who do not monitor their adwords campaigns on an ongoing basis might not even be aware that they have a QS problem and will assume that Google is simply trying to squeeze more money out of them and that Google is in fact - evil. I still don't buy that, but have seen a rise in complaints and accusations that Google is now profit-driven to satisfy shareholders rather than innovative and honest like they were when they started.
Wonder if AWA can weigh in here on how Google might be more transparent and cooperative with honest advertisers who are not trying to game the adwords system?
Given that Google loves relevance and adwords allows for finely tuned targeting it would only seem fair that Google also not group everyone into one basket and be willing to dig deeper into individual cases rather than let the QS algorithm do all the work. Algorithms are not perfect and do make mistakes just as managers who manage by numbers do - but that's another topic altogether...
Our system shows that users do not find your ad or landing page relevant when searching on this keyword
Could be translated from Google speak as
our algorithm suggests that users clicking on blue widgets aren't inerested in pages about green widgets
Additionally you may want to tlook at your ad text, because it does say
ad or landing page
The statement they make is just a way of saying, something about how your advertising, doesn't relate well to what you are advertising under, fix it.
The statement they make is just a way of saying, something about how your advertising, doesn't relate well to what you are advertising under, fix it.
The problem is that QS is not consistent and is 100% dependent on whatever traffic Google decide to show your ad to.
If Google decided to show your ad to people searching for green widgets (even though you are only advertising blue widgets), then it is Google who are responsible for providing a poor user experience by inaccurately matching your ad to the user query.
In the same sense, Google then punish you (even though it was their fault for sending poor traffic). It is a double-edged sword as I said... and for me I have resorted to advertising only with phrase and exact match queries due to experimenting with broad match (never tried the other "catch-all crap traffic" match).
And back to the OP question... hopefully the points raised will show why there is no need to include bounce rate as a measure of QS (or at least a major part of QS), as Google already determine it by displaying the ads to whoever they deem relevant irrespective of context.
Oh - I will point out I still think it is the best PPC I have used... but with all systems, there is no perfect answer and QS is something people should determine rather than algorithms (but Google rely on algorithms as it makes the system scalable).
