Google to Change Keyword Status Algo

Breaking Keywords News

[Tiber]

I just got this notice at the top of my AdWords account. Thought I'd post it so others can see it.

Coming soon: Simplified keyword states and quality-based minimum bids.
In the coming weeks, your keywords will no longer be evaluated as normal, in trial, on hold, or disabled. Instead, your keywords will either be active or inactive, depending on their quality and maximum CPC. Each keyword will be assigned a minimum bid based on its quality. As long as its maximum CPC meets this quality-based minimum bid, your keyword will remain active and trigger ads. Learn more.

[edited by: eWhisper at 12:00 am (utc) on July 15, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't copy entire pages. See TOS. [/edit]

[HitProf]

lol Ozdachs, I was thinking about asking them to hire a native Dutch speaker for the Dutch translations but now I see it's as bad in English :)

But after reading everything available I'm generally more positive than in my first post.

Few questions:
- it would be nice to have options to bid "lowest - at any price" and "lowest - up to $99.99"
- can we get optional email notification if an ad falls below minimum bid (like disapporoved ads)?
- will there still be keyword reviews or will we end up with ads for cars on t-shirt searches and ads on mortgages for books searches?

btw thanks for dropping the min CTR!

[running scared]

On of the joys of search engine advertising has always been the fact that you compete against your competitors for ad space rather than competing against all advertisers. I hope this does not spell the end of that.

I don't want to see mortgage adverts on real estate search phrases just because a mortgage company can make money out of it.

[patient2all]

Can someone reassure me and cite one instance of a major Google algo change that was a resounding sucess right out of the gate?

I haven't been around that long, but all I've experienced is varying periods of disappointments and loss of ROI whenever there has been a major change.
Eventually, I climb back, but I'm getting a bit battle weary and it's been just under a year.

When I started out, AdWords seemed to have everything running just fine and it was easy to understand the relationship of action to result on my part.

Thanks,

patient2all

[mark1111]

My guess, is that including the keyword in lines 2 or 3 gets you points, including it in the headline gets you more points, and including it in BOTH parts gets you max points, as far as wording goes.

Scoring the relevancy of ads, especially if it uses a system like this, is really going some. Some of my best ads don't mention the keyword at all--and in the case of trademarks, we often can't.

[arinick]

Has anybody seen anything stating that the Quality Score won't take into consideration other advertisers' historical CTR?

Google stated that the Quality Score is a new name for the predictive CTR algorithm they have used before, which we know considered historical CTR on a keyword basis, not only for individual advertisers.

If this is the case, keywords that would have been automatically marked 'on hold' or 'disabled', even before giving the advertiser a chance to try, will undoubtedly have minimum CPCs for new advertisers that will make them prohibitive (or stupid) to advertise anyhow-- the only real change then being that you could choose to *buy your way out of it* and hope to establish enough CTR at expensive minimum CPCs to eventually lower it.

Am I missing something here?

[suzyvirtual]

There seems to be a lot of industry "buzz" about how as paid search gets into the mainstream, many larger companies will be using it without a direct ROI measurement (for branding etc). I don't think this is necessarily true, but adwords could be opening themselves up for the prospect.

Also, finding new and underused keywords becomes way more valuable in this new system, so it will probably help google get money out of more, longer and obscure search terms.

Nobody has really mentioned that AWA has specifically confirmed a couple months ago that part of the relevance algorithm is based on the keywords in your ads and not just the CTR anymore so it might be a good time to polish up some old ads.

My guess is that it a not going to be a big deal though
, at least not yet.

[eWhisper]

What makes me wonder more than anything else is how this will effect broad matched keywords.

If Google is going to make a minimum CPC per keyword, it's in their best interest to have broad match show for every keyword, not just those who are currently showing for broadmatch (more here: [webmasterworld.com...] )

Will this effect broadmatch & phrae match from being shown only as exact matches in some cases?

[edited by: eWhisper at 5:14 pm (utc) on July 15, 2005]

[deepestblue]

The only huge concern this stage is that the new Minimum Bid not match the algo for the current Keyword Estimator.

As an earlier poster very correctly stated, "Right now when I run the keyword estimator tool, it suggests $2.82 for a keyword that I know darn well won't take more than a dime to maintain a healthy, profitable second place. This happens constantly!"

[bcct]

New keywords will no longer be disabled or have a minimum clickthrough rate (CTR) threshold. Instead, your keyword will trigger ads as long as it has a high enough Quality Score (determined by your keyword's CTR, relevance of ad text, historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors) and maximum CPC.

I am wondering the exact meaning of QS (quality score). So ,it is specific keyword’s Quality Score in an Account (AKQS) and max CPC that will determine whether an ad will be triggered.

Factors affecting QS (has got nothing to do with adrank & ad position here. All about triggering ad):

1. keyword CTR
Is it referring to?
a. specific keyword CTR within an AdGroup? (AGKCTR)
b. specific keyword CTR within a Campaign?(CKCTR)
c. specific keyword CTR within an Account? (ACKCTR)
d. specific keyword CTR of Google (all advertiser) (GKCTR)
e. average CTR of entire keywords in an account (ACTR)
f. average CTR of entire keywords in a campaign (CCTR)
g. average CTR of entire keywords in an AdGroup (AGCTR)

which one of the above will Google use to determine QS?

2. relevance of text ad
(opps! This is subjective, how google decide? base on human judgement)(who give the points?)

3. historical keyword performance
(entire history of the keyword? Last 1000 impression?)

4. other relevancy factors
(what is this "other relevancy factors"?)

Thanks folks.
regards,

[awmg]

With this new bidding process, will this mean that if one bids $1.00 they will actually be paying $1.00 - unlike now when you bid a dollar you never know waht you will actually pay? Will this be taking some of the google craziness out of Google?