First Page Bid and Ad Position Reliability

Changes in Ad position

[chriskriag]

How much reliable is first pg bid column in Adwords. I have a keyword in adgrop with 0.60 as first pg bid. I am bidding 0.88 for that keywords ( much higher than first pg bid) still I am not seeing my ad on first pg? Also I want to know how & where to check ad. Data from ad preview tool is different from google.com when used by proxy server.

Also I am getting 4.2 as avg position for my ad with 0.88 as bid( as mentioned above) what does this mean? I know it is average. Usually there are 8 - 9 ads on 1st page where does my ad rank? Does 4.2 position means ad on 1st page or any other page?

I am seeing my ad on 3rd pg - 2nd position using proxy server. How to know exactly which is the perfect & accurate ad position?

[aristotle]

I'm not an expert, but I think the quality score has to be taken into account. Also, I just read an old thread from a few months ago which says that Google changed the meaning of "exact match" to include variations.

[chriskriag]

Ok, But tel me what about the ad position & first page bid. I am not talking about QS. Yeah it may impact but i have QS -8 that keyword. Then what else?

[aristotle]

Well look at the thread I mentioned:
[webmasterworld.com ] (Google AdWords Going Close Variant Keyword Matching: Exact Match No Longer Possible)

This other thread says that Adwords changed the meaning of "exact match" to include variations. So other people could be bidding on variations of your keyword and you wouldn't even know it. Adwords would treat your keyword and all of these variations as exact matches of each other. So ads from other people for these variations could be catapulted onto the first page and push your ad down to the second page.

[aristotle]

As further explanation:
As i said, Adwords changed the meaning of "exact match" to include variations. So now, with this new policy, when you bid on an exact match keyword, you're not just bidding against other people who bid on that same exact keyword, but you're also bidding against people who bid on variations of that keyword.

So by making this change, Adwords has increased the number of people you potentailly have to bid against. This means that you might have to bid higher to get onto the first page than you would have before.