Content Network Advertisers Page Quality Update

[Marcia]

There's news about an update on the official Adwords blog, posted today:

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/11/...ty-update.html

Will my landing page quality affect my ad's position?
Not for Google search. While one's landing page quality is directly correlated with the minimum bid required for one's ads to run, it does not affect your ads position (or 'rank', as it is often referred to) at all. However, since there is no minimum bid requirement for contextually-targeted ads, low quality landing pages will result in the need to bid higher to compete in the auction, which could also impact your position on pages in the network.

It looks like the party may be coming to an end for the poor quality and deceptive pages that proliferate on the content network, causing some publishers to have to add to their filtered site lists almost daily.

[Toure]

..we'll begin incorporating landing page quality into the Quality Score for your contextually-targeted ads, using the same evaluation process as we do for ads showing on Google.com and the search network. Advertisers who may be providing a poor experience on their site will notice that their traffic across the content network decreases as a result of this change.

Basically they are trying to limit traffic on MFA (made for adsense) type sites sitting in their content network aswell.

[Marcia]

Basically the way I read it, people with poor quality sites who are now paying low prices for clicks for Adwords running on the content network will have to be paying more, probably enough of an increase so it won't be worth their while. Hopefully!

I've been pulling ad units off pages just about daily and adding sites to the filter. I've even removed Adsense from some pages altogether, the daily routine of examining for bad ads was starting to get tiresome. It's gotten really bad for the holidays,and when some were put on the filter others turned up with EXACTLY the same pages but with different domain names.

[Toure]

Yep definately, those MFA sites will not be able to get cheap traffic from the content network now aswell as the search.

I think its interesting to see Google confirm that landing page quality is only directly correlated with the minimum bid, rather than the QS in determining ad position.

[dsarathy]

Though they say that the focus on landing page quality would limit the traffic from MFA (Made for AdSense) sites. The percentage may be very less; because once these MFA Sites decides to pump more money then nothing can stop. So there would be some impact, but not much as projected.

All one could understand that there is going to be a decrease in the number of impressions. As a result the users are bound to bid more to retain their earlier traffic or conversions. This on the whole would impact the sites, which has got good quality score as well. So the bottom line is - 'Pump more money into Adwords'

This is just another incident to prove the importance of SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

D Sarathy.
RankQuest

[Chris_D]

in my personal opinion, the real answer to cleaning up MFA's is for Google to just enforce its Adsense TOS.

That will eliminate the collateral damage that occurs from these 'AdWords advertiser' blanket changes.

Do most of the sites you see in the index displaying Adsense actualy conform to these 'rules'?

- No Google ad may be placed on any non-content-based pages.
- No Google ad or Google search box may be displayed on any domain parking websites, pop-ups, pop-unders, or in any email.
- No Google ad may be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant.

https://www.google.com/adsense/suppo...=link&hl=en_US

[Toure]

in my personal opinion, the real answer to cleaning up MFA's is for Google to just enforce its Adsense TOS.

That will eliminate the collateral damage that occurs from these 'AdWords advertiser' blanket changes.

Do most of the sites you see in the index displaying Adsense actualy conform to these 'rules'?.

Google don't want to clear them up completely... they won't be getting their piece of the £ pie.

There's a load of money being made in arbitrage, by raising their min bids it just means they get a bigger share of that pie.

[AussieWebmaster]

yeah it is easier to keep raising the CPC and grabbing more of the money being made until eventually it goes away... and as it grows Google grabs the bulk of the pie....

another great "do no evil" move!!!

[Marcia]

Personally, the problem I've been having lately doesn't really involve primarily MFAs that run Adsense on their sites. It's mostly been sites that run an advert for a product line that they have nothing more than a "free" offer for if people sign up for something or other (like doing surveys, for example). It can say "free" in the ad title, but there's nothing free at all.

Another is the type of sites that have "searches" for which results show depending on which keywords visitors are coming in on, and all they are is PPC links (like Overture). I've also seen a couple that redirected when you type in the domain in IE, so that the landing pages aren't the same as what they're advertising - not even the same site.

Special for the holiday season are some that have just a search box on a holiday-related domain name, and when I've put one on the filter another took its place with a variation on the domain name but the identical site. I even took a guess at a variation and it turned out that they were running that domain also.

It's gone beyond just simple scraper Adsense sites with low quality for visitors, it's running into deliberate deception, and in some cases what looks like email harvesting campaigns for freebie programs.

[Toure]

Definately. This is not just about the basic MFA but different types of arbitragers.

I think the complete lack of transparency here is a major issue. Google are able to pretty much do as they please without the fear of repercussion under what it can deem as a landing page quality score update - rather than just a hike in bid prices.

The thing is a lot of this stuff can be banned under Googles basic policies. Maybe they don't have the resources to tackle it all completely or maybe they just don't really want to when there's so much money to be made?

By whacking in a landing page quality update it looks to joe public that they are really tackling the issue, but their dirty little secret is that they will be getting a bigger piece of the action themselves.

Having a landing page quality algo that only directly correlates with the minimum cpc (not ad position) just means they can pick and choose the size of their new margins from the pie.

[AussieWebmaster]

Funny Kim Malone - from Google - has opted out of the arbitrage panel in Chicago and reps from Yahoo! and now Microsoft have turned down the opportunity...

guess the issue is getting a little hot for the engines and they don't want to be pinned down in a public forum or have to publicly avoid answering certain questions....

I am looking forward to going at it a little more indepth this time. If anyone is coming to Chicago don't miss this panel.

[andrewgoodman]

Well, there goes the panel.

May I suggest we hand some of these babies out, and let any remaining panelists and attendees have their fun:
http://www.hasbro.com/pl/page.viewpr...rf/default.cfm

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by andrewgoodman

Well, there goes the panel.

May I suggest we hand some of these babies out, and let any remaining panelists and attendees have their fun:
http://www.hasbro.com/pl/page.viewpr...rf/default.cfm

There is one of the vendors that give out the nerf arrows.... could have some fun with those....

[Toure]

I had to bring back this thread.

I managed to get a pretty insightful interview with Graywolf regarding the latest landing page update.

http://www.ppcblog.co.uk/ppc/an-inte...-aka-graywolf/

There's still quite a few folk who believe Google are using CTR/conversion data but how about the organic algo for min bid prices...?

[abbottsys]

Originally Posted by Toure

...but how about the organic algo for min bid prices...?

I seriously doubt that. But, after looking at how 2 of my accounts were impacted I'm beginning to think that the word "page" may be misleading in "page quality". Can it be that they look at the page *with respect to the rest of the website*, and give higher quality to pages that match the overall website "theme"?