[bakedjake.com...]
It seems to me that the smartest thing for Google to do is not to discount bad pages (as it would be extremely hard to do so with a lack of data), but instead, to give a bonus of some sort to relevant pages. Everything I've heard from the AdWords team seems to indicate they're doing exactly that.
What can they look for?
To recap, they have the following metrics available to them to judge a landing page:
1. User bounce rate back to search pages
1a. "Was this link useful?" data
2. Toolbar data
3. AdWords conversion tool data / Urchin data (my guess? 30% of advertisers use one or both)
4. Onpage content
Users wouldn't use that button without bouncing back to a search page (or coming back to one they've seen before); you're not going to get a user to complete his purchase then come back and rate an advertisement on Google.
Quality Score and Arbitrage
It hasn't been decided yet whether quality score is an effort to increase relevance, counter arbitrage, or simply to drive up the price of online advertising. More and more we hear of large agencies and companies unable to spend all the dollars they want to on search. Only two ways to fix the problem: one, increase prices; or two, increase inventory.
On Google's AdWords Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines [adwords.google.com] page, they make the assertion that if their quality guidelines are followed, "Users develop a trust in the positive experience provided after clicking on AdWords ads". Horse#*$!, I say. Google's not stupid enough to try and prevent the inevitable - the public at large always develops a mistrust for any form of advertising on content - offline, or online.
Certainly, the MFA arbitrage sites don't help the situation. But it may not be why you think.
One of the primary problems with arbitrage sites is that the people that run them tend to be much more savvy than the average small business or large ad agency running their basic AdWords campaigns. Many arbitrageurs are changing bids in real time, looking at much deeper metrics than most e-com sites, where the simple ROI metric is king.
How can an e-commerce site, which usually sells product for a flat price, with a flat cost, compete with a sophisticated arbitrageur who can rotate inventory out on a whim? Remember we're not just talking about AdSense - sophisticated arbitrage sites rotate ad inventory within networks, rotate networks themselves (AdSense vs. YPN vs. AdBrite), even rotate typs of ads (CPC vs. Per Call vs. CPM vs. CPA). The most sophisticated arbitrage site I've ever seen would rotate real, drop-shipped stock, and ad networks, depending on bids that day.
The Facts Of Life
When it comes to arbitrage, I've got to think that Google realizes the following:
1. You can't stop arbitrage. Making an arbitrage site not look like an arbitrage site is a trivial task. The best examples of arbitrage sites that don't look like it are your mainstream shopping comparison sites.
2. Most search marketers will never be sophisticated enough to compete on a level playing field with arbitrageurs. It's simply not possible - it's like opening a store that sells one product only next to Wal-Mart.
Why Quality Score?
In my opinion, quality score is a reaction to the growing arbitrage business, but it's not meant to kill it (because they can't). IMHO, it's simply designed to give a bit of a pricing edge to sites selling products or services, instead of redirecting traffic.
A large agency told me eariler this week that an online spend of $10,000 required generation of $200,000 in revenue resulting from that spend. Arbitrageurs will continue working around the system, as they're much more willing and able to work with small margins. ;-)
Win-win here: arbitrageurs get to continue playing the game, while merchants don't suffer. Nice going, Google.
Credit to: [webmasterworld.com...] the original "was this link useful" post.
On Google's AdWords Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines page, they make the assertion that if their quality guidelines are followed, "Users develop a trust in the positive experience provided after clicking on AdWords ads". Horse#*$!, I say. Google's not stupid enough to try and prevent the inevitable - the public at large always develops a mistrust for any form of advertising on content - offline, or online.
As the gatekeepers/providers/presenters of information, search engines have started a new media trend. As with everything new, there's a chance to shape history. I think that Google must keep this idealism in tact in order to attempt to keep the trend of users trusting ads & search results from today into the future. Internally, I'm sure they debate this topic, however, as a public facing, one must be idealistic in their goals.
Users wouldn't use that button without bouncing back to a search page (or coming back to one they've seen before); you're not going to get a user to complete his purchase then come back and rate an advertisement on Google.
To this extent, I fully agree. I think more of the negative responses will be clicked as opposed to positive ones. If someone has a good experience, they're not going back to click a poll, their finding what they looked for. If one quickly hit the back button and saw the text, then yes, it's very possible.
As far as how merchants compete, well, there are ways. The first is margin. Arbitragers are willing to work at small margins as the money is made between disparate inventory types (click arbitrage, obviously, there are many many forms of arbitrage). Often website owners will have higher margins, hence, why they can usually compete with their affiliates - affiliates will never have the same margins as the actual store.
Of course, arbitrage only exists when there are merchants to foot the ad bill. Therefore, in the end, the merchant must finally end up with the user. So, they're making money. It's a matter of if they care that the end conversion went through a few sites before reaching them, or if they only want consumers directly from the search engines. And, of course, with this comes the brand considerations, their customers experiences, and their feelings about this traffic (which is outside the scope of this post).
Also, to the end some arbitragers are sophisticated, there are many others who aren't any more sophisticated than most merchants (and some merchants are very sophisticated). Many sites aren't measuring profits by keyword by time of day by geography. They hope their making money, and many of them are building a brand through arbitrage as well as making money.
Will quality score guidelines play a part in how affiliate, arbitrage, etc sites play a roll in traffic - most definitely. However, there are many ways of catering to the user experience. A good arbitrager can provide a good user experience, make money, and have a high quality score all at the same time.
The fraud is in the misrepresentation of content and manipulation of user behavior (i.e. "trapping" the user, ultimately encouraging them to click on links that they would not otherwise click on).
I am QUITE familiar with arbitrage, having written software and participated in a partnership for financial arbitrage. Most financial arbitrages are win-win. For example, the most simple form of financial arbitrage is across multiple isolated market centers. Both contra-parties get potential price improvement (and at least equal price) over the best bid/offer that might otherwise be available in their market.
This "arbitrage" is far from win-win. The losers, unfortunately, are legitimate advertisers and the public.
