This keyword "widget shop" is a highly searched keyword. According to Overture, there were 70,000 searches in January for this keyword.
I research google and see that there was only 10 advertisers paying for this keyword. This was yesterday. Today there are 16 advertisers.
Out of the 16 ads today, there are 6 very relevant ads. The rest of the ads are rediculously irrelevant. (When I say the ads are irrelevant, I am talking about the landing page is completely off.)
My ad text and my landing page are very relevant. I give useful advice about "widget shop". I give useful information about "widget shop". I offer 6 external links (With high PR) to help the user get more "widget shop" resources. I also offer "widget shop alternatives". (This is where I am attempting to make my money.) My "widget shop alternatives" are very, very relevant to the "widget shop". My ad text even says "Widget Shop Alternatives" so the ad is NOT misleading.
Why am I not getting a high quality score for the landing page to lower costs?
I ran my ad yesterday at $5/click, hoping that I would not get charged the full amount. It ran from yesterday afternoon until today and I gathered a CTR of 9% off of 122 impressions and I was held the #1 spot.
Ok, will someone tell me WHY I have to bid for the top spot and pay $5? Why do I have to pay $5 to even show for that keyword and get first place and NOT be able to pay $1 and bid for last place?
Now looking at the irrelevant landing pages, I gotta figure they are not paying $5 a click. Some of those pages just run adsense and there is just gibberish that the person searching for "widget shop" could careless about.
I could understand paying $5/click, not as a minimum bid, but to maybe get a high ranking on a competitive keyword that has many, many relevant ads. But there were only 10 competitors when I first ran the ad.
Anyway...I do all google tells me and provide a quality, relevant page, and I get stung with a $5 keyword. And other crappy ads continue to run that offers the end user ZERO value.
I called google and spoke to a rep. She was clueless for the most part. She said the crappy ads are still there because people are clicking on them. I told her that I would bet they aren't paying $5 a click with a less relevant page. She said she would contact the tech dept. and email me back. She agreed the landing page was high quality and highly relevant. I asked how to lower the $5/click minimum bid. She said to change the ad text to say "Widget Shop" and not "Widget Shop Alternative" I was like, if i do that, the ad will be misleading.
Damn, I thought google wanted people to be straight-forward, honest, relevant and offer original content of value.
I still can't win.
On a side note, I have placed the ad with yahoo. The top bid on Yahoo is .83. That right there tells me google's $5 assesment is way off because I am getting the top spot for $5 on google. and no where close to .83.
Obviously, I have listed the ad with Overture. I just hope I can work something out with Google too.
Any advice? Am I doing something wrong? Is this a flaw in Google's system somehow?
Spend what you feel comfortable with every day (even at a loss) -- $10,$50 whatever....
The price will then automatically drop...
I would hate to drop $500 to get the price down, only to not convert.
I think my best bet is Overture unless Google sees how rediculous this is and drops my price.
Watch what happens.....
You have an MFA site. Maybe you call it a "directory", but I call it an MFA site.
That you are having difficulty is good news for advertisers with real stores selling real goods.
When somebody searches for "widget shop", they are not looking for information about widget shops. They are looking for widget shops themselves.
An MFA site can never be as relevant as the real thing.
the term was likely invented by some members of the webmasterworld adsense forum. meanwhile a pretty common description for websites that are exclusively created for the purpose of earning money with the adsense program.
as they typically only cosist of ads and links and have no content, they serve no benefit for someone who is looking for real information or intends to buy widgets. it's a waste of time for the user and therefore these sites are frowned upon by serious webmasters.
in fact, the op's website is a classical example. shame on you! you rightly deserve no earnings with adwords.
Nowhere does Metakomm indicate that his/her site features Adsense or tries to make money through Adsense.
Metakomm's content site no doubt features some affiliate links selling the searched keyword in order to generate income.
Metakomm's site is attempting to follow Google's guidelines that the landing page should feature unique content as well as giving the visitor choices of where to buy the searched item.
This approach now appears to be less attractive to Adwords conflicting algo than the gibberish sites that outwit the "page relevancy" factor and feature other advertiser's paid ads. These gibberish sites are part of the Search network, barely qualifying as shopping directories and advertising through Adwords.
I know this because I've witnessed this phenonemon too. These gibberish sites scrape text from my sites & also feature my Adwords ad. Since like many advertisers, I don't generally participate in the Content network, these sites featuring my ad on their page and some text from my pages are indeed Google Search Partners. It gives me the unintended, but perhaps dubious benefit of having my ad appear more than once for the same search. Once in the ad that I made and again within these Search partner shopping pages.
People who click these sites can make little sense from the snippets grabbed from other websites, so they go to the more coherent Adwords ads featured within the page. If they click my ad that would be okay with me as long as they buy something ;) -- however it doesn't help my CTR since that's calculated only from Google.com clicks.
The people Metakomm complains about are one step up from the MFA sites, but are still using up slots for keywords irrelevant to their page's "content".
Like Metakomm, I've also found that as soon as I meet the Google minimun bid, I rise to the #1 spot quickly even though experienced advertisers know there is no guarantee of better ROI from paying more for a higher position. The bottom spot at a cheaper price can be just as eye catching and generate a decent ROI at far less than $5.00 a click.
Googles page relevancy factor is a failure though apparently a few have figured out how to exploit it to their advantage without going to the trouble of developing a content rich site.
Some of these slots are no doubt filled with traditional made for Adsense pages. However, now we need a new acromyn to describe the sites that now qualify as Search partners and advertise on Adwords though they're barely distinguishable from the MFA sites.
Get it?
Israel
I am offering a great alternative to the "widget shop".
I am offering healthy competition. And providing great value to people searching for widget shops.
You assume Jtara -- There is no adsense running on this page.
You are right. I assumed, since you did not give complete details, that your site was an MFA site. It's still in the same general genre.
Further, while the term may have been coined to mean "Made For Adsense", perhaps I meant to extend it to mean "Made For Adwords". :)
I am offering a great alternative to the "widget shop".I am offering healthy competition. And providing great value to people searching for widget shops.
That is your opinion. I think it's just taking the user one step further from finding what they want.
Regardless, it is still is not a widget shop, and thus can never be as relevant as a real widget shop when people search for widget shops.
You might have a case, if the search term in question was "widget shop information", or "widget shop directory". But I'll bet you aren't even bidding on those keywords.
Bravo to Google for doing the right thing, and improving the quality of Adwords by making this an uneconomic prospect.
How?
I give information about widget shops...How widget shops work, how widget shops can be a NEGATIVE thing for the user, how widget shops can be a POSITIVE thing for the user.
I tell people where to find a widget shop in their state.
Now, I give complete, useful information...The good and bad about widget shops.
If they like the good, they can find a widget shop in two clicks.
If they see the bad, they can find a widget shop alternative in two clicks. (Where I make my money.)
I have given the user an extra option which may work better in their situation. That user is now more educated...
Jtara you seem to want to censor healthy competition or something...
The keyword is very broad and I am covering more bases explaining that keyword then others.
Even though the widget shop keyword is still listed at $5 minimum, check out these wierd stats....Someone please explain.
My ad is showing even though inactive.
I have the keyword set to $1, yet
I have got 2 clicks off 87 impressions, with a CTR of 2.2% and they only charged me .18/click with an average position of 1.2!
So please explain how yesterday, I had paid $5/click for the 1 spot, and today (although inactive), for the 1.2 spot, I only paid .18/click?
Does that now mean if i bid $5 it will only cost me around .18?
I am showing up at the TOP premium spot...The blue ads under 'widget shop'
But, it shows the keyword is still inactive for a $5 bid!
That you are having difficulty is good news for advertisers with real stores selling real goods.
jtara,
It’s disingenuous to believe that the Google page quality factor can readily distinguish a “real” store from a site like Metakomms. Even if one believes the hoodoo about Google penalizing affiliate links, they take too many different forms to be recognized or can appear only on inner pages or built through code.
The darn thing is flawed and the terms it chooses to charge big bucks for more often than not are the less searched terms. It's only sometimes that a highly searched term demands $10.00.
Then when you search on it, many times there are no ads showing at all. Does that mean all the "real" stores have gone broke?
Running a broad range of sites, it's apparent that the mininum costs are based less on your landing page than some subtleties that trigger the "raise the cost flag".
Certain wordings of the search terms simply confuse the calculation.
I've done tests where the same bids, some low, some high, are requested whether the site is highly relevant to the term or has nothing to do with the term (or where the site doesn't exist at all!).
Israel
I think I am providing a service for the keyword "widget shop".
But what Google thinks is what matters.
If they like the good, they can find a widget shop in two clicks.
... illustrating my point that you are taking the user FURTHER from finding what they want. This makes your ad less relevant than those from widget shops. If they'd just have clicked on an ad from a widget shop, they'd have gotten what they wanted in one click.
Jtara you seem to want to censor healthy competition or something...
Not at all. You are free to compete. But under Google's system, you are going to have to pay more, before your ad is less relevant than others on that keyword.
I'm just commenting that the system is apparently working as intended, and that is good news for people with widget shops. I also feel that the policy increases the quality of Adwords, and want Google to know that it's noticed and appreciated.
Ok here is a very powerful suggestion... Change the title to "Widget Shop Side Effects" or "Widget Shop Scams" or "Dont buy Widgets" whichever appropriate and link to a landing page which talks the negative things about widgets and then soft sell your widget alternatives.
I bet with this changes you will improve the CTR ,lower the minimum bid and more importantly improve the sales of your widget alternative :)
You haven't commented on whether or not you are bidding on terms such as "widget shop alternative", "widget shop directory", "widget shop disadvantages", etc.
But, for the sake of argument, let's say you are.
I would expect that you would be getting better prices on those terms than would widget shops. Your ad is more relevant for people searching for those terms than are ads for widget shops. They are LOOKING for an alternative to widget shops, and that is what you give them.
Do you think the complaints of the owner of a widget shop that he can't get good prices on those terms would be justified?
Let me just say my conversion % is very high and that page is generating me on avg $250/day profit since running in MSN...
People had a problem, I offered an alternative, better solution...And now I am getting paid...I guess I'm doing something right, and google is doing something wrong 8)
Their algorithm doesn't allow for certain variables to be taken into consideration...Oh well...My google account has been paused for almost the whole month now...I took my money to MSN :)
Can't say it is definitely the case but it seems like if you just modify the landing page or even swap a new one into the same ad, it doesn't necesarily get factored into the "quality score". Sometimes it seems like Google does not re-scan a new or modified landing page for an existing ad but creation of a new ad in a new ad group triggers the spider to come out and look at it again.
It might be worth a shot.
