AdWords Smart Keyword Evaluation Is Live

[Mel66]

...at least it is for our account! I didn't get an announcement or warning from Google, but instead discovered it when I logged in to my account this morning. No matter - it's pretty interesting to see how it works. Some previously in-trial or disabled keywords are surprisingly affordable under the Smart Pricing, and others are ridiculously expensive. Pretty much what I expected, so far. I've been having fun re-enabling some high-converting keywords this morning. :)

One interesting observation, and I think we were told about this ahead of time: Keywords that are in trial or on hold will show in your account with the minimum bid needed for them to go live; but disabled keywords stay disabled. If you want see the minimum bid needed to re-enable a disabled keyword, you need to delete it, then add it - at which point you'll see the minimum bid. Takes a bit of time, but is worth it if the keywords are important to you.

Is everyone seeing this now, or is G rolling it out in waves? What does everyone think of the new system? Time will tell what this does for ROI, but so far, I like it!

Melissa

[Mel66]

I just logged in to my account again after lunch, and the smart keyword system is gone! It's back to the old on-hold / in-trial / disabled stuff. So, all the keywords I spent 2 hours re-enabling this morning are back on hold. Argh!

What gives? Was this some sort of test of the system? :confused:

Melissa

[rustybrick]

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum81/6086.htm has more information, I believe. AdWordsAdvisor commented there.

[holyearth]

How I see this,

If you had an irrelevant keyword you couldn't use it...but NOW...you have to PAY the google empire big bucks to have that keyword back...

so how does that make the search relevant for the user if a keyword that was previously inactive now becomes ACTIVE because an adwords advertiser paid more?

This is BULL!!!!!

[Mel66]

http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum81/6086.htm has more information, I believe. AdWordsAdvisor commented there.
Thanks, some good info in that thread. Interesting - I was told by an Adwords rep (not my rep, but someone else) that the changes I made in the new system would NOT be saved and I'd need to redo all of them (which didn't thrill me, to say the least). But AWA said in the WMW thread that your changes WOULD be saved. Which is it? AWR, can you comment?

I'll reserve judgement on the value / benefit of the new system until it's been live for a while. For us, anyway, I think it will be a good thing overall - but I didn't get enough time to play around with it during the short-lived "test" to know for sure. However from what I did see, and from what I've been told, I'm very optimistic. YMMV, of course. We're not bidding on "mesothelioma." ;)

Melissa

[AdWordsRep]

Hi Mel66.

Per the alerts thread elsewhere on this forum, (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=6699) I just wanted to confirm that that the keyword status changes and quality-based minimum bids are being launched today - and that the launch should be completed shortly.
I'll reserve judgment on the value / benefit of the new system until it's been live for a while.... I've always known you to be a wise one. :)

And I also know that I can count on you for honest and carefully considered feedback, whether you are pleased or not. That is a very good thing. ;)

AWR

[strategicrankings]

ridiculously expensive

that's what you think when you are asked to set the minimum bid of a keyword to $5.00 to activate it, where you used to pay $0.50 to rank no 1 for that same keyword. really crazy.

[andrewgoodman]

How I see this,

If you had an irrelevant keyword you couldn't use it...but NOW...you have to PAY the google empire big bucks to have that keyword back...

so how does that make the search relevant for the user if a keyword that was previously inactive now becomes ACTIVE because an adwords advertiser paid more?

This is BULL!!!!!

This, I submit, is an oversimplification.

In trying to achieve any outcome, it is not good enough just to state the outcome itself. "Speeding is not allowed" is not the end of the conversation. We then use policy instruments from a toolkit of potential ways of influencing human behavior (posted signage, frequent tickets, photo radar, speed bumps, etc.), and test to see which instruments balances reasonable performance in achieving the outcome with the available resources for implementation, and various social goals.

Google's top-level policy has always been to encourage relevant, quality ads. They had done so with a mix of editorial policies, a relevancy formula, and strict quality-based thresholds that left low-CTR or low-quality keywords inactive. They are now doing so with a mix of editorial policies, a relevancy formula, and a system that leaves low-CTR or low-quality keywords inactive, but which allows them to be made active with a higher bid.

Incremental change, it appears.

You would swear that in addition to those engineers, Google employs economists and policy scientists who advise them on how to design a pricing system to achieve certain outcomes.

At the end of the day, though, it appears that the outcomes remain unchanged, and that instead of speedbumps we are dealing with a fine system. Just a shift in policy instruments.

True, they are a for-profit company, with a really complicated rate card. But it's their site, and their technology. They are a publisher that has the right to set prices on ads, as with many similar media businesses over the past century. Empire, schmempire. And the major broadcast networks (etc.) aren't empires?

[AussieWebmaster]

How I see this,

If you had an irrelevant keyword you couldn't use it...but NOW...you have to PAY the google empire big bucks to have that keyword back...

so how does that make the search relevant for the user if a keyword that was previously inactive now becomes ACTIVE because an adwords advertiser paid more?

This is BULL!!!!!

Once you start serious AdWord campaigns and have had a bunch of very good converting terms disable for you you will appreciate this... but hey you missed all that...

[holyearth]

I have run some pretty serious PPC campaigns on Adwords and to my dismay, my TOP 5 converting keywords were disabled!!!!!

Now, since they were disabled you would assume, no, that the relevancy is the reason?...CTR was not met of 1.5% or whatever....(assuming the ad itself is as optimized as possible)...

Ohh but wait...NOW...If I pay $5 CPC instead of $1 CPC I can get the keywords back all day long...

I've proven my point. CTR which meant relevancy no longer matters. And I have to pay 5x more as per my example for an irrelevant keyword to become relevant.....

[szetela]

Friends,

Just noticed something interesting, and possibly important...

For those of you whose campaigns are under the new "Keyword Status System."

Try this with one of your Adwords Ad Groups:

1. Click on "Edit Keywords."

2. Click on the "Estimate Traffic" button.

Notice that there's a new "Minimum Bid" column? Scan down the list, and see if you can spot any Minimum Bids that are below $.05. My lists contain minimum bids as low as $.01!

I have successfully set the bids for individual keywords to values lower than $.05, which (I think) was the previous minimum.

Is this something new (perhaps I never noticed before), or a glitch.

Interesting fact #2: you can now create a custom report that includes the minimum acceptable bid for each keyword - or at least there's a check box for that item. When I tried it, though the check box was checked, no column appeared in the report.

Can someone reality-check my observations?

Thanks,

David

[strategicrankings]

CTR is no more a priority for Google, by extension relevancy will suffer, those who've got the bucks can push irrelevant ads since they've got the money. Improve relevancy?

[Mel66]

Hi Mel66.

Per the alerts thread elsewhere on this forum, (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=6699) I just wanted to confirm that that the keyword status changes and quality-based minimum bids are being launched today - and that the launch should be completed shortly.
OK, good. Can you tell us if the changes we made during yesterday's test will hold or not? (I haven't logged in to my account yet this morning to see.)
I've always known you to be a wise one. :)

And I also know that I can count on you for honest and carefully considered feedback, whether you are pleased or not. That is a very good thing. ;)

You are too kind. ;) Just to make it clear - I'm confident I'll be pleased with the new system - in fact I'll be *very* pleased if some of our high-converting-but-long-disabled keywords can go live again! The only thing I'm not pleased with so far is the possibility that 2 hours of work might have gone down the tubes. :)

Gotta go. I have some work to do. LOL

Melissa

[AdWordsRep]

Can you tell us if the changes we made during yesterday's test will hold or not? (I haven't logged in to my account yet this morning to see.) Oops. I failed to answer this question from your previous post, Mel66. I did see it too. I may be suffering from the dreaded tired-brain syndrome. ;)

So, my sources tell me that, yes, your changes should have been saved - and you should see them reflected in your account now that the new system is 'live'.

I guess this will have been either confirmed or proved incorrect by now, as I am sure you have visited your account. If my info turns out to have been incorrect, please let me know - and I'll let the right folks know.

AWR

[OneWolf]

I have to admire, in a way, the even-handedness with which many of you are taking this change. Given the many thousands of dollars that I spend with AdWords each year, this would appear to be nothing more than a ruthless oligopolist pouncing on a revenue opportunity.

Yes, it's a private site. Yes, they are for-profit. So, can we stop acting like they're doing us some kind of favor? So, some of you can reactivate your irrelevant keywords by paying Microsof... sorry, Google for the privilege. What if you're not selling a car or real estate, and your conversion is small? What if relevancy was never a problem?

Where 90% of our ads would have appeared immediately for small bids, and we would have eventually lost only a few due to poor relevancy (measured by CTR), we are now asked (no, told) to at least double our bids before the ads even run. And that improves relevancy how? Our campaigns will now obtain far fewer clicks for much more money, and relevancy has nothing to do with it.

Should the market not vote with their dollars (and I know that we will in a big way), Google has been given the green light to just extract as much as possible from their customers until something snaps. While that's not illegal, or even unethical I suppose, it paints a real change in the nature of that company. The bean counters have taken over. The PhDs in economics are finally getting their day in the sun. Of course, we knew it would come with going public and a soaring stock price needing support.

It just surprises me how Kool-Aid is being served with this, and many otherwise thoughtful parties are gulping it down.

[Mel66]

Wow, OneWolf - such vitriol for your first post.

So, some of you can reactivate your irrelevant keywords by paying Microsof... sorry, Google for the privilege.
I resent this comment and the sweeping generalization you're making. It's been well-documented that many advertisers have had relevant (as measured by HIGH CONVERSIONS) keywords disabled under the old system, because they were high-volume or competitive or whatever. I don't measure relevancy solely by CTR - it all comes down to ROI. I don't care how many people click on my ads, as long as the ones that do, are converting. I realize this is also a generalization, but for many of us PPC advertisers, we are at least as concerned with conversions and ROI as we are with CTR. In fact I'd rather they NOT click if they're not serious about buying. The old Google system made it difficult to maximize ROI due to the disabling. Now, if you're willing to pay because your ROI allows it, you can run your ads with no problem. I happen to like that a lot.

And just to be clear, we don't sell cars or real estate. It's not just the big-ticket, high-CPC advertisers that can benefit from the new system.

Melissa

[Chris Boggs]

It's been "all good" for us so far. Most of the campaigns we were running didn't have any disabled, but those that did are now live again, and the majority even skipped the "increase minimum bid" part since we were already willing to bid "above market value." Even terms such as "used car" on a nationwide basis are not higher than .30 (used cars: .10). The highest I have seen yet is 40 cents, and we run some very competitive/converting terms.

I am curious as to some of these $5 terms. Anyone?

[AussieWebmaster]

Guess Google has been reading my blog so much they just subliminally named the evaluation tool after it.... lol

[OneWolf]

Was that vitriolic?

Well, I just think it's pretty creepy what's happening. I'm not saying that there won't be those who like the new system. Clearly, if you're willing to pay, the system has become "money talks" now.

What I'm saying is that it has NOTHING to do with improving relevancy as defined by users. It has strictly to do with Google increasing revenue to support a massive valuation-- enabling advertisers to simply buy their way out of irrelevancy for a given term.

You may feel that your ads are relevant because they have high conversions, but if people are not clicking on them enough for a given keyword, it's because for most people, they aren't relevant for that keyword. That's pretty much the definition.

Just because someone buys your Paris Hilton video after searching for Paris, does NOT make it a good ad. It's just noise. But, that's OK, in the new system, you can up your bid until the occasional pervert that DOES find it relevant sees it. So does everyone else, of course.

You like the new system. I do not. No vitriol intended towards you.

[andrewgoodman]

I have run some pretty serious PPC campaigns on Adwords and to my dismay, my TOP 5 converting keywords were disabled!!!!!

Now, since they were disabled you would assume, no, that the relevancy is the reason?...CTR was not met of 1.5% or whatever....(assuming the ad itself is as optimized as possible)...

Ohh but wait...NOW...If I pay $5 CPC instead of $1 CPC I can get the keywords back all day long...

I've proven my point. CTR which meant relevancy no longer matters. And I have to pay 5x more as per my example for an irrelevant keyword to become relevant.....

You haven't proven your point entirely, though I sympathize. The 1.5% you speak of could have been pumped up by high CTR's on partner sites like AOL, which Google doesn't count. They focus on user behavior on Google Search, but the reporting gives you the aggregate numbers. Yes, that's frustratingly non-transparent.

It is also a bit disturbing how we've slid into "quality" based on "the relevancy of your ads" and "other relevancy factors," which makes it all a very slippery slope indeed, amenable to manipulation for revenue-generation purposes or to please certain trademark holders, or who knows what else.

Whether Google is in fact manipulating the minimums for non-quality ends is impossible to know, since no one will tell you exactly what the algorithm is.

I did have one keyword that I was bidding 0.10 on that they wanted $5.00 for. I think though I was just stuffing a real shot-in-the dark keyword in there, so it was probably a warranted "disabling" situation.

One of the typical types of keywords that seems to get a low enough quality score to require a higher min. bid is those popular-keyword one-word broad matches. These were always tough to keep active anyway. So whether you do it by saying 0.1% CTR doesn't cut it, or ask for a $0.40 min bid, the principle is the same.

AussieWebmaster and I are talking about very real things that are affecting a lot of the campaigns we manage. It looks like we agree that this change looks like an incremental one to this point.

I should also note that I am seeing minimums as low as .02 now, and have indeed paid as little as .02 on a keyword because my quality score was so high I kept my ad position and got to pay the minimum even though my max bid on that keyword was sitting at .44.

[AussieWebmaster]

We had some problems with a hugely popular word that virtually no-one was advertising for because it was one that the searchers all seemedf to jump to the organics...
This is especially true where you have problems getting to the blue bar (top area). Then the CTR never meets the right numbers and the thousand impressions run by in under an hour and you are disbaled again!

For those situations you benefit by the option... and people who are playing with it may get in for the start but staying for the long haul is going to take relevance. Or you are buying expensive exit traffic.

[andrewgoodman]

I have to admire, in a way, the even-handedness with which many of you are taking this change. Given the many thousands of dollars that I spend with AdWords each year, this would appear to be nothing more than a ruthless oligopolist pouncing on a revenue opportunity.

Yes, it's a private site. Yes, they are for-profit. So, can we stop acting like they're doing us some kind of favor? So, some of you can reactivate your irrelevant keywords by paying Microsof... sorry, Google for the privilege. What if you're not selling a car or real estate, and your conversion is small? What if relevancy was never a problem?

Where 90% of our ads would have appeared immediately for small bids, and we would have eventually lost only a few due to poor relevancy (measured by CTR), we are now asked (no, told) to at least double our bids before the ads even run. And that improves relevancy how? Our campaigns will now obtain far fewer clicks for much more money, and relevancy has nothing to do with it.

Should the market not vote with their dollars (and I know that we will in a big way), Google has been given the green light to just extract as much as possible from their customers until something snaps. While that's not illegal, or even unethical I suppose, it paints a real change in the nature of that company. The bean counters have taken over. The PhDs in economics are finally getting their day in the sun. Of course, we knew it would come with going public and a soaring stock price needing support.

It just surprises me how Kool-Aid is being served with this, and many otherwise thoughtful parties are gulping it down.

Accused of being even-handed... I must be losing my edge.

Unfortunately even-handedness comes with the territory. I recently wrote a book about AdWords and although I make numerous critical comments about Google, I also had several editors and fact-checkers (no one from Google) asking me to defend every point. Ultimately, a process like this teaches you that there are certain facts that it is fair to point out, to provide balance.

Absolutely, contact with all sides of the story is a type of filtering process that dampens down those fervent anti-monopoly-capital noises that we all like to make as a hobby. (I once tried that as a living but this didn't work out. Baby Boomers used to call it selling out. Gen-Xers like me are always just happy to have gainful employment and a set of nice bookshelves where we can proudly display the values we sold out somewhere along the line. Ha, kidding, half. Most of those books are in boxes in the basement.)

I can "stop acting" any way you like, OneWolf, but I can't stop acting like someone who runs a business, who will have to get up tomorrow and figure out how to best deal with this system on behalf of clients. I no more get to decide on the rules of engagement than I can in any other such uneven relationship. I do perceive, however, that Google has taken into account advertiser feedback, including mine, in making this particular change. Advertisers were frustrated with the keyword states and with the persistent problem of having keywords disabled even though they might be willing to spend a bit of cash to at least TRY to get them to work from an ROI (not CTR) standpoint.

That feeling of getting up in the morning and needing to make it work, my friend, is no different from any other phase of the Grand Google AdWords experiment. It's always been a cool toy that aims to accomplish a multitude of objectives. "Cool toy" as Google engineers define cool. No question. It's their agenda, but don't you want to admit they do a lot of listening?

There is no proof this is purely revenue-driven. It could well be revenue-neutral. But yes, I assume it will appeal to a few big agencies and smaller clients alike to bid more on the "dead" keywords rather than leaving them dead, which means THOSE CLIENTS BELIEVE THEY CAN MAKE A POSITIVE ROI WHEN THEY DO SO!! Could this possibly be a win-win situation -- not a zero-sum game?

The only loser in that scenario is the user experience. Google takes a risk every time it threatens the user experience, and it knows it. Time will tell whether this change is so detrimental to the user experience. A few run-of-site ads for Ford Explorers on an ad-supported site is not going to be the end of the world, IMHO. But then again, I do not maintain a subscription to AdBusters.

I am keeping an open mind, including keeping it open to your point of view. Around the office we do keep a close eye on shifty rhetoric from the paid search vendors, like anyone else, and a particularly close eye on ploys that are clearly inflationary. As with many, that kind of chatter is a hobby and basic survival tactic for us. The list is long, from both Yahoo and Google, but that's a longer conversation.

[andrewgoodman]

It's been "all good" for us so far. Most of the campaigns we were running didn't have any disabled, but those that did are now live again, and the majority even skipped the "increase minimum bid" part since we were already willing to bid "above market value." Even terms such as "used car" on a nationwide basis are not higher than .30 (used cars: .10). The highest I have seen yet is 40 cents, and we run some very competitive/converting terms.

I am curious as to some of these $5 terms. Anyone?


"Allwhois"

Happy? :D

[Mel66]

"Rolling Stone Magazine" has a minimum of $10/click.

Go figure. One click costs as much as a 1-year subscription to the magazine. :D

And Andrew, hear hear. You very eloquently explained exactly my opinion on the system, in a much clearer fashion than I did in my post. I guess that's why you're a published author and I'm not. :D

Melissa

[OneWolf]

Just to be clear, I spend many thousands of dollars every week with AdWords and Overture. I understand the concept of being in business.

I understand the concept of oligopoly->monopoly and the enhanced profit margins thereby attained.

I understand that we, as consumers, have no right to complain about anything if we don't use our dollars to provide market influences to our vendors to behave in a desirable way.

More to the point in this thread, I understand that the damage caused to the user experience is, in the short term, irrelevant. The only reason that Google would protect the user experience is to maintain their user base, i.e., their source of revenue ultimately.

Now that they feel that they are the de facto standard, they no longer have an economic interest in protecting that experience. Thus, allowing someone to turn on a term that could be COMPLETELY irrelevant by paying enough is a great way to make more revenue to support their lofty stock price and growth curves.

Realistically, it's clear that the users will need to make changes to get Google to see that they actually care about relevancy. They'll need a reasonable alternative, but the switching costs are pretty low. Personally, while I deal with Google in my business on a daily basis, I find their search results to be nothing more than about 75% spam these days, and that's accelerating.

My point, originally, was that you may like the new system or not-- it appears that it will seriously harm my clients' campaign ROIs-- but the Google argument that it somehow helps relevancy or that it's a generically great thing for advertisers is bunk. They could have done lots of things to eliminate the "on-hold" thing-- like just eliminate that. The core of the change is allowing advertisers to circumvent relevancy if the price is right.

[andrewgoodman]

The on-hold system was developed to rein in a real problem, though. Affiliate advertisers dumping the whole dictionary in their accounts at 5 cents, hoping to skim some profit. Terrible user experience while the keywords stayed active, and gumming up the whole system for sincere advertisers.

The new system accomplishes essentially the same objective by putting the low-quality keywords out of reach (based on the same predictive model that has apparently been carried over) of the lowball affiliates by pricing them higher. Unfortunately there is some collateral damage, but there would be collateral damage of almost any attempt to prevent gaming of this system.

[Discovery]

Now that some time has passed since it's launch have you experienced any measurable difference across all of your campaigns?

We have seen some small changes with individual keywords, but overall our positioning, ctr, cpc and cpl have stayed virtually the same. Perhaps we're just lucky, or perhaps we have been doing our job and focusing our campaigns on the right keywords that convert.

Any conclusive results out there?

[AussieWebmaster]

The on-hold system was developed to rein in a real problem, though. Affiliate advertisers dumping the whole dictionary in their accounts at 5 cents, hoping to skim some profit. Terrible user experience while the keywords stayed active, and gumming up the whole system for sincere advertisers.

The new system accomplishes essentially the same objective by putting the low-quality keywords out of reach (based on the same predictive model that has apparently been carried over) of the lowball affiliates by pricing them higher. Unfortunately there is some collateral damage, but there would be collateral damage of almost any attempt to prevent gaming of this system.

Andrew, though I agree with your logic of what the intention may have been... the execution does not seem to have too much of an upside for advertisers.
True the interlopers are not there, but I am not getting this at a really affordable rate. I have a bunch of terms they want $5 plus for....
the funny thing is that is not that much less than what the word is going for at the top listing which may be one of the few spots that holds an acceptable CTR for Google.

[dgrumbli]

I haven't seen much difference in traffic with the new Adwords but, I have seen some significant changes in the position forecast when doing bids. I have one which shows position 4 but comes up on page 4. Has anyone else seen this?

[AussieWebmaster]

I haven't seen much difference in traffic with the new Adwords but, I have seen some significant changes in the position forecast when doing bids. I have one which shows position 4 but comes up on page 4. Has anyone else seen this?

Are you discussing the general estimator tool? The thread is discussing the new active/inactive cost estimator etc.

[flyingrose]

I believe I know the true cause of the minimum bids for keyword phrases that had no competition. I invite other advertisers to test my theory to see if it applies to them.

I believe you'll find that those keyword phrases were broadmatched to more expensive phrases during the change. This has been happening for years but it wasn't obvious because before the only indication would be that the average position for a few phrases would drop suddenly. Now their system calls attention to them.

You can confirm this by going to the keyword level, selecting "edit keywords" and "estimate traffic" - then click "find alternatives" for the keyword phrase with the high minimum. All of the words in the left column are broadmatched to that phrase. You should find your answer there.

I've been posting about this for a long time. It is getting to be more and more of an issue and it is, in my words, "strangling the Golden Goose". I have a thread elsewhere with examples and more detail for those interested.

[andrewgoodman]

I believe I know the true cause of the minimum bids for keyword phrases that had no competition. I invite other advertisers to test my theory to see if it applies to them.

I believe you'll find that those keyword phrases were broadmatched to more expensive phrases during the change. This has been happening for years but it wasn't obvious because before the only indication would be that the average position for a few phrases would drop suddenly. Now their system calls attention to them.

You can confirm this by going to the keyword level, selecting "edit keywords" and "estimate traffic" - then click "find alternatives" for the keyword phrase with the high minimum. All of the words in the left column are broadmatched to that phrase. You should find your answer there.

I've been posting about this for a long time. It is getting to be more and more of an issue and it is, in my words, "strangling the Golden Goose". I have a thread elsewhere with examples and more detail for those interested.

flyingrose, could you illustrate with an example? I'm having a bit of trouble following this argument.

[OneWolf]

Well, time has passed, and to a large degree, not much has changed. What appears to be happening is that AdWords looks for anything that might be "good" (i.e., competitive, popular, and timely) and tries to gouge for it. So, if you panic, you pay the $1 or $5 (seems to be the going rate to buy relevance these days) and you get your term and Google has succeeded in raising the ante to play.

Of course, they tell you that you probably won't pay that much. But, if someone else follows that logic, you're now competing with your ridiculous bids for the term, and you are, indeed, going to pay that much unless I misunderstand the concept of bidding. I bid $1, and you bid $1, we're not going to be paying $.08.

However, if you don't panic, you just sit and wait, and eventually, they run your terms anyway because they have to have something running to make money. The end result is that the whole thing is a bit inflationary, but I would guess it's hurting Google more than anyone. We're planning to move our budgets away because this has made alternative channels more competitive.

It remains to be seen how this impacts their financials, which is clearly all that matters to them at this point. What I mostly find irritating is all of these assertions that any of this has anything, whatsoever, to do with improving relevancy or my success as an advertiser.

[andrewgoodman]

Well, time has passed, and to a large degree, not much has changed. What appears to be happening is that AdWords looks for anything that might be "good" (i.e., competitive, popular, and timely) and tries to gouge for it. So, if you panic, you pay the $1 or $5 (seems to be the going rate to buy relevance these days) and you get your term and Google has succeeded in raising the ante to play.

Time has indeed passed. And the system is proving to be a challenge.

BUT, in the accounts I manage, a very high percentage of keywords are unaffected.

Does your diagnosis, that AdWords looks for anything "good" and seeks to gouge for it, really pass scientific muster? Doesn't Google make enough from the auction aspect of PPC without taking steps to gouge (which could prove counterproductive) for no reason?

Algorithmically, this is not likely what is happening.

Admittedly, Quality Scores are opaque. Even one component of a Quality Score is opaque.

Trademarked terms do seem to be singled out somewhat. I find that sneaky because no one explained that there could be special rules for those terms, perhaps even a list fed into the system that decreases all quality scores on broad matches for (let's say) single-word popular trademarks. That's just a suspicion based on the pattern I'm seeing with high-bid-minimum terms.

In any case, I hope that bidders would not throw $1.24 and $5.00 at terms that were worth nowhere near that. "Panic"? Why? Most accounts do fine without a few words, which would have been DISABLED under the old system anyway.

I'm trying to reflect on WHY certain words are getting such poor quality scores in my accounts. There is clearly a method to it at Google's end. The question we are all asking is: what is the method? Google has sketched it out, but beyond that you're of course free to speculate. I just don't think the above theory gets it quite right. High bids are a fact of life in most industries anyway, due to bidding wars.

This does make it a bit harder to cherrypick. It doesn't immediately raise Goog's revenues, perhaps, but it leaves some SERP's less cluttered I would guess. It hits the affiliate keyword dumpers where it hurts.

Google is apparently doing more checking of more elements of the whole process - account history, comparing meanings of ads to keywords, and even (I suspect) content on the page.

Thus they continue to attempt to build a scalable "quality evaluation" system. Whereas Overture continues to assess quality largely on the basis of capricious editorial decisions, no?


Of course, they tell you that you probably won't pay that much. But, if someone else follows that logic, you're now competing with your ridiculous bids for the term, and you are, indeed, going to pay that much unless I misunderstand the concept of bidding. I bid $1, and you bid $1, we're not going to be paying $.08.

However, if you don't panic, you just sit and wait, and eventually, they run your terms anyway because they have to have something running to make money. The end result is that the whole thing is a bit inflationary, but I would guess it's hurting Google more than anyone. We're planning to move our budgets away because this has made alternative channels more competitive.

It remains to be seen how this impacts their financials, which is clearly all that matters to them at this point. What I mostly find irritating is all of these assertions that any of this has anything, whatsoever, to do with improving relevancy or my success as an advertiser.

Sure it has to do with relevancy, as the platform always has. Users would stop using Google if the ads weren't relevant. They'd stop clicking the ads. Google has to be more aggressive than ever about ad quality and relevancy or users will stop using Google. That's what history tells us, anyway.

I'm not saying the program is perfect, but why is the assertion that it has something to do with relevancy irritating? Isn't it about relevancy? Surely the goal is not to interrupt uninterested SE users.

Agreed, it is not directly about your success as an advertiser. As I argue elsewhere, you are secondary in Google's world. The search engine user is first. Relevancy first, then.

[OneWolf]

You're clearly seeing something about this system that I am not or are predisposed to supporting Google's actions for some reason.

Are Overture's editorial guidelines capricious? Absolutely. Does it enforce more relevancy? I'd certainly think so. Nonetheless, it's not relevant to this issue.

I can post whatever I like under whatever keyword that I like on Google. If it makes the min. CPC hurdle, it's up. How that translates to "the search engine user first" escapes me. How setting a ridiculous minimum bid for a keyword that is absolutely relevant to the topic at hand helps anyone but Google also escapes me.

Google (and you) keep insisting that our keywords "wouldn't run anyway." How on earth would one make such a blanket statement? It's completely untrue in my case. I've enabled less relevant words by deleting and replacing them but have been unable to run much more relevant terms because of Google's desire to exert their pricing power.

I would rather have had Google simply come out and say "we feel that the value of our advertising channel is not being set appropriately, and we are restructuring pricing to reflect that." I wouldn't have liked it, but there wouldn't be much to argue about. I take issue with having smoke blown up my backside.

I'm simply not raising my bids. They can run the ads, and make some money, or not. If not, it loses effectiveness as a marketing channel, and I move my dollars elsewhere. We've already calculated what they're worth. As I said, so far, they threaten to restrict to minimum bids but pretty rarely do over the long haul.

Price discrimination at its finest. You want that to run today? That'll be $5. You'll go when we decide to let it go? OK, $.25. It's all "opaque" to the buyers, so no one complains about inequity of price vs. position. If it works, they manage to be both a high-end boutique and overstock.com at the same time.

It's an enviable position to be in, and they have every right to go for it as long as their market position holds. It seems to me, though, that they are trying to subvert some basic economics in the interest of not leaving any money on the table.