Adwords phone support designed to annoy?

Have you checked if "Chat" link is available at the contact page? Be aware that many of us see it at some time, and don't see it at other time.

Other than that, there are some posts here that discuss the QS in detail, including email harvesting, links starting purchase process at other domain, etc.

Hi smallcompany - thanks for the response, there is no chat option on my google adwords page. That would be perfect.

I've read many QS posts, and run several campaigns with relatively high QS. I haven't made use of the techniques that you list.

This is a campaign where the content on the landing page contains the phrases used in the keyword list. That's why I do not understand the low score.

The techniques that you refer to - do you mean that they can lower QS?

there's a seminar today, by G, about understanding QS.
it's at 11am pacific time.

adwords.google.com/support/aw/bin/static.py?page=webinars.cs

Hi RhinoFish,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am not sure a seminar would help.
I'd be interested in your opinion though, and that of smallcompany.

Here are a few sample keywords from the campaign in question:

<snip>

this is the site:
<snip>

In your understanding, are those keywords relevant to that site / landing page?

Thanks for your input

[edited by: engine at 12:17 pm (utc) on Feb 19, 2010]
[edit reason] Please, no specifics, See Charter and TOS [/edit]

The "engine" seems to have removed the keywords and url that I posted / am referring to.

Can somebody please explain how the process of discussing actual examples with real data works if all proper nouns are removed?

The "engine" is actually a person.

You can't discuss actual examples or real data here. You could try the Google Adwords forum, but here we don't allow urls or specifics.

You can't discuss actual examples or real data here. You could try the Google Adwords forum, but here we don't allow urls or specifics.

To this I would add that if folks do decide to post there, be sure to read the 'posting guidelines' which are linked-to at the top of the 'Ask a question' page, in which one would create a new thread.

As with any forum, there are a number of important 'rules' there as well, which, if not honored, can result in posts or thread being deleted. This is because the folks who watch over the forum don't have the ability to edit the posts, as engine has done here.

AWA

so from what i am reading here it is not possible to discuss real data either here or on the g forum.

that seems a bit strange. why not? should we discuss hypothetical examples? How can we answer real questions without discussing real data?

Thank you for re-opening this post.

In order to be constructive and because I really need an answer to my question(s), I will assume that the rules cited in order to justify the editing of my post are also constructive, and I will attempt to post my question without any specific references.


AdWordsAdvisor: thank you for your reference to the adwords forum rules. I would very much appreciate your help in posting a question there, if you are willing to advise.

Below is the question / scenario for which I would like to have input.

My friends and I have spent several years building a software product. We have made this product free. It is a companion to a product which google has released, which is also free.

Our product has a very specific function and there are very specific keywords which describe its functionality. They are the same words as the name of the tool. We selected these keywords and created a campaign with them.

The ads are not showing, according to the adwords system, because of low keyword quality.

These are the explanations I have since received from an adwords representative via email:

1. "Our system finds that your keywords are not relevant to your ads and landing page."

2. "We have found that users do not search on these keywords to look up for your ad."

3. "When a user searches on your keyword, the ad that appears should turn into conversions. This is why though your keyword appears on your landing page, users do not search on these keywords to find your product."


The arguments above strike me as tautological at best (no one will search for a product if they do not know about it) and ulterior at worst; I believe that somebody at google feels threatened by the promotion / existence of our software.

Obviously my conclusions are based completely on my personal experience and role in this project, as I do not actually know what “happened”. That is why I opened this discussion in the public domain because I want to hear what other experts think, based on the facts of the case. I provide technical support to several thousand people for a living and am very interested in facts.

I also believe in peer review and that is why I want to hear what others think about this situation before I stop thinking about it and move on to the next project.

I have also been building ppc campaings for almost 10 years and I have never had a keyword quality score of 2/10.

Thank you for your time and attention. I hope you all are enjoying your weekend.

How can we answer real questions without discussing real data?

Webmasterworld (WW) is what is says, not so much PPC world. At the bottom of this site it says 1996-2010.

Now, bare with me, don't take my upper words as something to swipe you away.

The only reason why members are not allowed to post their own stuff here is because WW wants to prevent the exploitation and misuse of the forum for the benefit of dishonest individuals and companies.

Imagine if a forum with the WW's pedigree features posts with links to different sites?
As bunch of crooks would start posting (read lying) about their products, way bigger bunch of people would figure they did not get from a product what they expected, nor what was said at the famous WW.
That would be the end of the serious forum.
I witnessed posts that would get locked as moderators would figure somebody was trying to play naive in order to promote product or service like a web hosting company.
Many would pay a lot to get links to their sites from here. I saw my posts showing in Google an hour after I created them. Google is constantly crawling this site.

Maybe Brett has one of Google's servers under his desk, ha?! :))

I'm not saying WW is the #1, but it does have its reputation.

I believe your ways of sharing the real stuff with people that hang around here are:

- by having people confirm it's OK to sticky them
- by posting your site's link in Review my Site [webmasterworld.com...] (check the rules)

In regards of what you described, it may be that Google does not want you to identify with their product.
Since fairly recently (few months), Google's big campaign was to smash those that tried to monetize on Google's brand - in a bad and treachery way. In short, they would hook up people on earn so much by working from home for Google, just send your address and some money and you'll get the form or whatever.
Plus, Google has sharpened their whole PPC engine in general when about QS, and the system is catching (sometimes human manual reviewers) more stuff that Google has determined to be wrong, i.e., sites with malicious code, affiliate sites without useful content, email harvesters, sites that redirect visitors to other sites to finish their purchase, subscription, or whatever process, and so on.
Finally, you said FREE, a magic words that Google has become very sensitive to lately. Just because, most of free turns out not to be.

It also happens that Google makes mistakes about some sites. I'm sure some folks are seeing worse sites than theirs. Nobody knows for sure if they will go "under" as well, or what makes the difference between the two.

I understand your frustration, but don't let it take you away from your problem.
And trust me, all of us here screamed at Google not once, but many times. Some of my own posts were quite bad.

As I said few times before, Google AdWords is an animal without head or tail, a constant mutant that had you get caught in one of its round corners. ;)

Cheers

[edited by: bill at 8:47 am (utc) on Feb 23, 2010]
[edit reason] See sticky [/edit]

Hi SC,

Thx for your replies.

In regards of what you described, it may be that Google does not want you to identify with their product.

That's the initial hypothesis. Without knowing, it remains speculation on our part. Because we suspect this, we would rather receive a message telling us "Google does not want you to identify with their product." versus us receiving a low QS and a notification that our ads are not running. We asked Adwords to suggest its own keywords and none were forthcoming.

For the record, our product is free. It's a companion to google analytics. It was designed to improve google analytics.

Thanks for all your feedback, it's not so nice to listen to and read about people complaining.

f_l - good luck and thanks for the twitter link, now I know what you are talking about.

Keep up the pressure - there are tons of alternate approaches which might help you resolve or diagnose the situation.

Search around for "google slap" - at one time, reading up on this was very helpful to me. Times have changed, but some of this may well be relevant.

Hi finish_last, I feel for you. I follow all the rules and just pick the most relevant keywords, when it gets slapped I just want to let rip. Support is ____, and all the Google help pages is just old news, since I've read them 10 times already.

The problem is Google is too secretive. They cant give direct answers to why things gets slapped because they are too afraid of giving away knowledge! So we all have to continue wondering around in the dark, trying to figure things out as we bump in to them.