Again CTR Confusion [Archive] - Search Engine Watch Forums

MarketingMind

01-29-2006, 09:51 AM

andrewgoodman

01-29-2006, 01:05 PM

While Adwords algorithm determines my Ad positioning it consider Keyword CTR as vital component apart from CPC, and other factors involed in Quality Score?

My Question
1. Which CTR is considered?
A) Current CTR of the Keyword (Today)
B) Previous Day CTR of the keyword
C) This Month CTR of the Keyword
D) All Time CTR of the keywords
E) Its the secret that Google will never let anyone know.

2. How important is AD Copy CTR (In Quantifying Terms) or what is the percentage of AD Copy CTR in algorithm to determine Rank of a keyword and which AD CTR is considered?
A) Current CTR of Ad Copies (Today)
B) Previous Day CTR of Ad Copies
C) This Month CTR of Ad Copies
D) All Time CTR of Ad Copies
E) Is it the secret that Google will never let anyone know.

3. Does anyone know exhaustively what all things are covered in Quality Score?

4. Is there any fixed pattern that Adwords use while displaying search results, as we notice certain Ads apperaing again on next pages? As per my observation 11th Ad of first page search result again appears on next page (page 2) on top right side Sposnered Listing.

This looks like a fun quiz. Of course as you know, Google's exact formulas are a black box. But I'll try to answer and encourage answers from anyone else who has a hunch!

1. CTR History likely considers the whole CTR history stretching back a year or two, with more recent history relative to industry/competitor averages probably playing a stronger part. Clearly there has been an attempt to smooth performance by looking at the overall history so that short-term fluctuations in search behavior -- or impression spam for that matter -- don't affect quality campaigns. But of course the exact formula is proprietary.

2. This is more difficult because Google doesn't really explain the relationship of ads very well. They seem to be looking for ad relevance. But most of this is simply covered by assessing CTR on a keyword basis, so it's unlikely that ad copy CTR has a large independent impact on QS. Perhaps it has no impact. Ad copy's relevance to keywords in the ad group and to landing page content likely is a relationship that is being looked at, but more so in young campaigns. CTR data by keyword likely becomes prominent as a campaign builds a CTR history.

3. No, but Google's documentation is fairly explanatory. One clue should be to look also at all of Google's past and present editorial policies, and another is everything they've written or enforced about search quality on the organic side.

4. I've noticed that too. Google obviously experiments with giving some advertisers prominent placement on page 2, but I tend not to care too much about such low placements. If you hear anything specific I'm sure the thread will be interested to hear... but likely Google will tell you something about always testing different layouts and ad delivery schemes to determine what is optimal for users and advertisers.