Proof Positive That Google Uses Page Content in AdWords Quality Scoring
Written by Andy Komack on August 14th, 2007I recently participated in a survey that PPC Hero conducted regarding Google’s AdWord Quality Scoring formula.
The survey produced some interesting results - primarily seeing what other “PPC experts” think are the critical factors in Google’s Ad Rank formula (the formula that determines Quality Score).
Honestly, I don’t remember how I answered the survey. But, below is a table with how I would rank each criteria today:
Of course, with Google rolling out its new top placement formula (see my previous Google AdWords new formula post), the importance of Max Bid just became elevated!
One thing I wanted to share about Landing Page Keyword Relevance is a recent experience I had with a client that highlighted how crucial landing page copy can be in an AdWords campaign.
We were bidding on a series of brand names in order to drive people to a site to learn more about the brands in question (this was not a bid-against-the-competitor campaign).
We had hundreds of keyword variations for each brand in order to capture both high-volume and low-volume “tail” traffic. The majority of the keywords were set to “inactive” by Google and a bid of $5.00 was required to re-activate the keywords.
We had the client put up specific landing pages with information about each of the brands. Of course, the pages contained rich information about each of the brands. Within 2 hours of posting the new content, the keywords had all be re-scored and re-activated at the (much) lower bids we already had in place.
If I ever needed an affirmation that page content counts for PPC, that was it!
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August 24th, 2007 at 1:21 pmWithin 2 hours of posting the new content, the keywords had all be re-scored and re-activated at the (much) lower bids we already had in place.
I have a question though…Does the bot visit everytime the ad is shown or when you update your landing page while having the campaign active?
September 1st, 2007 at 6:24 amHi Amit,
I wish I had a good answer for that. In speaking with a Google AdWords rep about this, all that I could divine was that if your ads are not running (i.e. if they are paused), then there will not be a re-scoring.
I could not get an answer to whether or not Google crawls the ads themselves, or if this is a backend process.
That same AdWords rep indicated that the experience we had with a re-scoring within a few hours was atypical.
For what it’s worth, here is Google’s standard answer that says “soon” but gives no direct time:
http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=49063
Here are excerpts from that link:
“AdWords visits and evaluates advertiser landing pages on a regular basis. If you’ve made significant changes to improve the relevance and quality of your landing pages, you should see higher Quality Scores and lower minimum CPC bids for your keywords. You will probably not see an impact within the first few days, but should see results over time.”
“We’re unable to guarantee a timeline for any improvement to your Quality Scores should you make any changes to your landing pages. If you don’t see lower minimum CPC bid requirements, you should evaluate our guidelines and verify that your changes are meaningful and substantial. Minimal or superficial landing page changes are unlikely to result in strong Quality Score improvements or lower costs.”
“Also, please be aware that some websites may always experience lower Quality Scores due to the nature of the site’s content. In these cases, such sites may be unable to further improve their existing Quality Scores.”
September 5th, 2007 at 10:54 am