Quality Score Algorithm Changed?

Most of my account got a drop around Oct 14-15

[Mitkarker]

I've been searching the web for it and found nothing.
But I do have the feeling that something happened with the Quality Score around October 14-15 (give or take).

I have many accounts I handle, and a lot of them got their Quality Score changed ( downwards of course, I wouldn't complain on the other way :) ).

I know that it happens....

BUT, to so many keywords in so different accounts?
To be more accurate on what happened, some of the accounts were not affected, and all of those were abroad - not US campaigns...

Does anybody know anything, felt this shake? Or am I alone in a post atomic world with all the books to read and broken glasses (Twilight Zone)?

[TheRealSaxman]

I hate to say it, but I noticed something similar as well. I had keywords that were steady for some time drop 3 points around the time you've indicated... afterwards I did however change the Headline in my as variation to add my keyword at the front instead of the back and that helped raise it back up 2 points. ("Widgets For Sale" instead of "Sale On Widgets")... Maybe this could help you?

[Mitkarker]

I did it also, but I haven't gotten back too many points to QS.

[eWhisper]

I agree; it appears that on 10/15 - 10/16 something did happen.

When I dig into the details; it seems that the change came from 'expected CTR' and that some ads with great CTRs (like branded ads) felt a drop in QS.

I noticed more of a drop than an increase on these types of words. It didn't affect a lot of keywords overall, but for those it did, it seemed they has a 1-3 point drop in QS and a corresponding increase in CPC.

[Mitkarker]

Same here.
QS drops were not exclusively to brands but biggest drops happened in Brands.

Monopolies....

[rbarker]

I didn't notice the change in QS back then, but I did notice a jump in CPC's. We throttled a few low performing ad groups and are now paying roughly the same for fewer terms...

[jskrewson]

My Adwords accounts were hit by something negative during that exact time period. Costs went up, conversions went down.

Its been my experience that Adwords tweaks something every year around early November in order to maximize profits. In the past, it has been a loosening of the quality score in order to allow more keyword competition. This year it was the exact opposite, from my perspective.

IMHO, we hit a retail soft spot during late September, October, which probably caused a downward bid trend in Adwords. In order to maintain their profit growth, Adwords turned the screws to make us pay more.

[Nutterum]

Anyone else seeing spike in CTR but non converting traffic? Maybe its seasonal thing, I can`t tell for sure yet, however boy was I surprised when 30%+ of my keywords went double digit CTR in the past 10 days.