keywords disabled EVERYWHERE

[inferno]

have you guys looked at your account in the last 20 mins? ive got ad groups with 5-10 keywords showing as DISABLED, whereas a few days ago, they were all showing as "active"

somethings weird afoot!

i called it in to google, but if other ppl are seeing this, it sure helps my case, the lady on the phone kept saying, never heard of this, but if the keywords were disabled before the change over, they stay disabled, and i kept saying, no no no, these happened TODAY, not in the last week, and shes like, well, again, the only time ive ever heard of this problem is when it was disabled before the change.

i think she was skeptical, thinking i just never noticed the 30 or so keywords that were disabled.

believe me, that is something i would definately noticed as i go into each and every ad group on a daily basis.

[humblebeginnings]

Don't see anything strange about the status of my keywords.

[breny]

I saw the same thing today. I thought it was weird.

[vanderbolt]

I deleted all the disabled kws from my account a few days ago. I am surprised to see a large number of kws got disabled since yesterday. I thought kws now get inactive first to give us an opportunity to raise the bid.

[inferno]

yea, me thinks google has a lot of bugs in this new system.

[AdWordsAdvisor]

I'll certainly take a look into this. Thanks for the heads-up. ;)

AWA

[dbar]

Just logged in and noticed a bunch of newly disabled kw's. Came right here to see if there was a known problem going on.

Glad to see AWA is aware and looking into it.

[eyeinthesky]

Yep, same here. A bunch of newly disbled keywords. I know this because these keywords were put in a few days ago so as to take advantage of the new policy.

Now, what?

[patient2all]

Aside from through the API, is there a way to locate all Disabled keywords at once as we had before the checkboxes changed to Active/Inactive?

Thanks,

patient2all

[sem4u]

I have a couple of disabled keywords as well. These have been active/normal for a couple months.

[jim2003]

patient2all,

you can run a keyword report for disabled keywords.

[toddb]

Any idea if Google will just reverse this for us?

[PyrettaBlaze]

Last week, we went through all of our Adwords accounts and did a complete clean-up of disabled terms; We deleted and re-submitted all disabled keywords. We thought everything was ok (except for some re-activation and higher bids)...
This morning I checked one of the accounts and saw that there were over 490 disabled keywords! I sent an email to support and am awaiting a reply.
While searching for some kind of tip or reason for the newly disabled terms, I came across this, an Adwords blog entry dated 08/19/05:

Question no. 1: Why do I still see disabled keywords in my account?
Though we're no longer disabling keywords within your account, keywords that were previously disabled will remain in your account for approximately one month. At that time, we will delete all disabled keywords. This gives you the chance to evaluate your disabled keywords and add any valuable ones back into your account. We'll send you an email before this happens to let you know that your disabled keywords will soon be deleted.

So why, all of a sudden, are keywords being disabled again?
I agree, there seems to be a few bugs in the new system. Hopefully Google will fix this problem SOON...

~XJenX~

[AdWordsAdvisor]

Hi all,

I'm still following up on this with the tech folks, and know that they have received only a very few examples to work from. (Also, they've looked at a couple of 'cases' in which the words turned out to have been previously disabled, but never actually deleted & then re-entered).

In any case, actual examples would be very useful - and if anyone is seeing new disabled keywords - or previously disabled keywords what were deleted & then re-entered, and which are now disabled again, I hope that you'll write to AdWords support from within the account, with details.

Very specific information as to campaign(s), Ad Group(s), and keyword(s) would certainly forward the troubleshooting process. Also, specifics as to when the keywords were entered, if they were ever disabled in the past, and so forth would be very helpful.

Thanks very much!

AWA

[patient2all]

you can run a keyword report for disabled keywords

Yes Jim, I forgot about those.

3 issues though:

They're often wrong. I do disabled or disapproved:

Report type: Keyword
Date range: All Time
View: Summary
Campaigns: All
Ad Groups: All
Keywords: Disapproved
Adwords type: All
Keyword matching: All
Scheduled: On Demand
Email notification: Off

They either come up with no items or missing items that I'm clearly staring at in the AdGroup that fit the category. Am I doing something wrong?

2) I miss before when I could change match types, delete, etc for deleted.

3) Keywords that I never heard of (and certainly hadn't used) get disabled.

Alright, no more going OT on this for me.

patient2all

patient2all

[PyrettaBlaze]

We've had the same problems w/ running keyword reports for disabled terms. Many came back with 0 terms in the report.

Has anyone heard anything new on the problem w/ returning disabled terms? Still not heard back from support, so I'm wondering...

Also (in reference to AWA's post), the terms that are disabled again (this has occurred in many accounts now) WERE previously deleted and then re-submitted, and after re-submission, they were shown as active, except a few that needed a cpc boost. Then all of a sudden, today there are hundreds upon hundreds of keywords that were just disabled out of the blue.

...the saga continues.

[inferno]

awa.

heres a perfect example.

i was on the phone with an ad rep of your phone supposrt about a week ago, and we were talking about how come i have to pay 30 cents a click for my company name and such, and we both looked at the ad group that encompasses my company nam,e there were a few words INACTIVE there, but non DISABLED. i re-activated them because i simply can not afford to lose traffic going to my company via my company name. so she witnessed that adgroup w/ only inactive keywords.

yesterday 4 were disabled in that adgroup, i immediately deleted and re-added them back in, and i have several adgroups that i have left "disabled" keywords in for you guys to see what is going on, but there is an example where an employee of yours witnessed a functional adgroup, and that adgroup had a keyword disabled.

[edited by: eWhisper at 11:14 pm (utc) on Aug. 30, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't drop names [/edit]

[GAds]

Same happened to me. I have several keywords got disabled again after I reactived them a week ago, and there're some new disables. Part of the old algo is back?

[JKelly]

same problem here, newly disabled keyword, does not show up in reports

[mark1111]

I have the same problem. Does it help to delete and re-add them, or do they just go disabled again?

[JKelly]

I don't know as I have not tried deleting them. I have been told they are aware of the problem of them not turning up in the reports and are working on fixing it although if the fix does not happen in 30 days from the recent keyword status changes, they will be automatically deleted, so you may want to make note of them in case they do not fix it in time so you know which ones to add back later.

[inferno]

got this email today:

<email removed>

so basically there is a new rule that if a term, highly specific, gets no impressions for 90 days, they will just disable them? seems kinda strange if you ask me.

[edited by: eWhisper at 2:21 am (utc) on Sep. 1, 2005]
[edit reason] Please don't paste emails. See TOS. [/edit]

[mark1111]

What do they mean, "it is unlikely they will run in
the future"? They're going to disable them again after 90 days?

The more questions, the fewer answers. The Google whiz kids crash and burn.

[PyrettaBlaze]

It sounds like the old rule for disabling terms that do not meet the .05% CTR has been discontinued and the newer rule for disabling terms that do not accrue impressions within 90 days is still in effect.

[outland88]

I thought specifically in the new system there were only going to be active and inactive keywords. They're now disabling keywords. What's the point of disabling?

Google's going to have to work a little harder for my money. I'm not going to do hourly maintenance for them.

[patient2all]

so basically there is a new rule that if a term, highly specific, gets no impressions for 90 days, they will just disable them? seems kinda strange if you ask me.

At least for my account, that rule has always been around. Almost like clockwork, I'll go from 10 disabled keywords to 1000 every month or two. I can virtually date that back to 90 days when I started up a bunch of AdGroups.

While that may be annoying to some industries, I consider it kind of a favor in my case since they obviously weren't doing me any good.

One way to get extra mileage out of keywords without impressions and I've done this on occassion is to enter them as say, exact match. Wait about 2 1/2 months and change all with no impressions to phrase match. 2 1/2 months later change them to broad. A different lifecycle order may suit your needs better.

I've done that with sets of words that I thought might have some future potential. In effect, you can drag the process out almost 9 months.

patient2all

[AdWordsAdvisor]

...the saga continues.

I return with good news. I am told that this particular saga should now be over.

Thanks for sending examples, which helped pinpoint the issue.

So, if you have keywords that were disabled, you should be back in business if you delete them, then re-enter them again.

My apology for the extra steps, and for the inconvenience this has caused some of you.

AWA

[crimsonblack]

this is absolutely crazy

Im having tons of keywords disabled.. then i get them active then they are disabled..

they want you to raise the bids to like through the roof.. to hell with that.. im not doing that.. thats googles way of trying to suck more money

what are you doing?

[eyeinthesky]

I think the quickest way (at least to me) to re-enable my disabled keywords is :

1) Delete the entire keyword list

2) Add it back

This will re-enable the disabled keywords easily.

But will this affect my ad rank (through the keyword ctr)?

[inferno]

thats a good question, and one id like to know that answer to, will our keyword history for these keywords be at all effected (or are they ever?) for them accidently becoming disabled?

good question their mate!