Will a qualifying landing page kill my QS?

Segmenting users with their first click

[pavlovapete]

Let's say I sell two types of widget. The Jumbo and the Mini.
I advertise on Google with the copy "Buy any size widget"

Then I send traffic to a simple 2 button page with the text "Please select either Jumbo or Mini widget"

Assuming I have a good landing page on the second click how will Google rate my initial landing page.

[LifeinAsia]

Probably pretty low.

At a minimum, I would definitely put some basic information about each type.

[pavlovapete]

LifeInAsia

thanks for your reply and suggestion. I guess I could add some qualifying information about the widgets on offer that would not stop people from clicking through.

Cheers

[buckworks]

If the qualifying information were skillfully written, the page might be able to pick up some relevant organic traffic too.

[pavlovapete]

Thankyou buckworks - a good idea as I had intended to <noindex> the landing page.
Cheers

[thecloser]

If you're not a big brand, trying to use simple, industry-accepted landing page segmentation techniques is a losing battle. You'll need to write your user an essay, because users' only find simple interfaces for choosing what they want if you're a big brand. /sarcasm

[Green_Grass]

You will be lucky to get a good QS.. Let us know, if you succeed.. will be interesting.

The last Google QS algo update seemed to kill the kind of landing page you describe.. esp. for me.

[eWhisper]

It's important to remember that pages are either relevant or not relevant - there is no middle ground. If Google thinks your page is relevant - there is nothing else to do.

If you create this page in a test ad group first, and it's considered relevant - then you're in good shape as far as QS goes. If you see non-relevant, then you need to change it up.

That advice is for QS purposes. You should still make sure that the consumer has enough info on the landing page to choose their own path and watch the bounce rates carefully by keyword.

[pavlovapete]

Thanks Green_Grass, thanks eWhisper.

pages are either relevant or not relevant

That is the sticking point isn't it? I'm trying to say to Google "Well this page sucks, it has no content, but I can assure you that the *next* pages after the click are relevant"
That seems to me, based on your replies, a bit too much to ask from the Googlebot.

create this page in a test ad group first

And this is another good thing to remember, especially given the advice I have received here over the years - test, test, test.

the consumer has enough info on the landing page to choose their own path

I suppose if the purpose of the self-segmenting landing page is to get some idea whether people want jumbo or mini widgets then I could move that choice up a level to the adgroup and advertise with the keyword "jumbo widget" or "mini widget"

Thanks for your thought provoking responses.

Cheers

[lgn1]

I was thinking of the same thing.

In one respect, Google wants you to target the keyword towards the most relevent page.

On the other side, if you have two websites, one for ACME widgits only and another for ACE widgits only, you cant serve both websites from the same google account, and if you setup two adwords accounts you are breaking the TOS, and risk being banned.

Google needs to differentiate, between Bad Double Serving and Serving unique content from two separate websites, on the same keywords.

In a world where drop shipping reduces the carbon footprint by 35% over having your own warehouse, more and more companies are getting on the drop shipping bandwagon, and thus segmented websites for each manufactuer.