The new QS has been really annoying, i think my keywords are placed frequently in my landing page but my biggest score is only 6/10. What's the formula to get good QS (at least 8/10)? How to do it, any suggestion?
Quality Score is based on various factors, such as - * Clickthrough Rate (CTR): if CTR is good then it will increase your quality score. * Keyword relevance to the Ad: QS can be increased by relevant keywords. Too general keywords can display the ad for less relevant search query. Anyways it bring irrelevant traffic to site * Quality of Ad text: Writing quality ad text can boost up your QS as it increases the chances of getting more clicks. So here again CTR comes into picture * Landing Page Quality: Landing page should be the most relevant page for the product or services you are offering. Landing page should have relevant & original content, along with transparency & navigability. * Account History: The past performance of Ads is measured by the CTR of all the ads & keywords in the account. * Relevance of the keywords & ad to the search query: This factor is also important in deciding the Ad’s position. Hope This will help
you are just referring to adwords FAQ section. But still, i do have some questions. 1. account history -> well, if earlier i never had any real success with adwords CTR, so I CAN'T have success with my new campaigns? But that's crazy. Should I create a new account so everything will begin from zero again? My earlier campaigns CTR sux because I was experimenting. 2. quality of ad text -> what does it mean and how to improve the quality? what's the difference between quality and poor ad text? 3. CTR -> probably you're right but yesterday when my CTR was below 2%, my QS was 6/10. Then when it went up to above 2.5%, my QS brought down to 4/10.
That is a good point about account history. Do they take into account everything ever recorded in your account or just what is active now? My account includes 8 campaigns that I have deleted but are still listed in the account snapshot. It seems the data is dropped after one year but does that mean if you delete under performing ads or keywords it is 12 months before it positively effects your account history?
They do and when you have a new account/no history you just don't get the "bump" that an established account will give you. It's important to note you're not "penalized" and every new account has an equal chance of achieving a solid account level QS.
@ GuyfromChicago. Are you saying that in terms of the account history element they do count all your deleted campaigns, keywords and ads, etc. for all time? The fact the data is unavailable after a year suggests they may use a rolling 12 month measure. That would be bad enough but in your scenario it could take years to recover from a poor history - you would be better every time closing your account and opening a new one.
You can't see your account QS...and frankly I don't put much thought into it. Even if it's "really good" or "really bad" it just doesn't seem to have that much impact on your keyword performance if you know what you're doing. I've recently (like today) been working with some accounts that have to have an absolutely horrendous account QS. Some of the things I've seen in these accounts are unbelievable...I mean how many 2000 unrelated broad matched no negatives in sight keywords per ad group opted into all distribution channels at once without any conversion tracking ad groups can one account hold? Basically everything I've added has been poor (lots of 1/10) right from the start...but, after a few hours in the wild the quality scores improve and things start looking a little more like what I'm used to working with. If I had to guess I'd say in terms of an account level QS they look at everything that's ever happened since the day the account opened. I'd also speculate that really good performance offsets poor historical performance...very quickly.
Okay, thanks for the info. Have to say I am really struggling to see that QS at any level has much impact. Interesting. You are not the first to report seeing fairly rapid improvements in QS. Again, I am struggling to see any improvement no matter what I do. I have a couple of keywords that occasionally move up or down a point but it does not appear to have any relation to anything I am doing (if it is, it is days not hours before seeing results!) I think this may be because my keywords were generally high QS coming into the new system then many ( 30 - 40%) got knocked back 3 or 4 points for no apparent reason - certainly nothing I did. Since then it has been a real struggle to get the slightest improvement and, even then, I do not know if it is something I have done or someone else's actions. It seems all who report fairly rapid improvements are starting from a low base.
Do you mind if I ask how long you've been working with AdWords and at what level...ie, part time, side project, full time, etc. Experience with AdWords is invaluable - there are some things you can learn with time.
Give google what they want: - relevant group of keywords - relevant ad creation - relevant landing page if you do that you will be fine
GuyfromChicago, Had an account for 18 months just promoting my own site. Definitely part time. Took about a year to finally get something I was happy with then just let it run with very little input for the last few months. Everything was going okay until the new QS system started when my impressions almost doubled and CTR halved overnight (net effect was a drop of about 20% in visitors). I had not changed anything in my campaign and all the numbers (ave. position, CPC etc.) looked normal. A mystery. That is what initially sent me on a search for answers that lead me to this board. In the meantime I left everything as it was. Then, 2 weeks in, the QS fell 3-4 points on a load of my terms. Still not knowing what was going on I again left everything as it was and to date the drop in QS has had almost no effect on performance except the ave. CPC on my account dropped about 10% (the only big changes have gone contrary to expectations, i.e. QS drops and ave. position rises!) The account was actually still performing reasonably well but from everything I read it seemed I should be doing better. So, I decided to try "optimizing" various aspects of my campaigns, e.g, I had an ad-group containing all forms of silver bracelet, bangle and cuff all aimed at a landing page called "......./silver-bracelets". I broke the group up and gave bangles and cuffs their own targeted ads and destination pages (already existing). I also tried changing display urls to include the keywords, e.g."www.site.com/silver-bangles" (a technique I had never previously used). I took similar action across my account. After 3 or 4 days those keywords that fell back from 8 to 4 or 5 are still at 4 or 5 although, perhaps, the odd one has gone up a point. But, otherwise, in general the account performance has hardly changed. So, I am still mystified, especially when I read of people effecting QS changes in a matter of hours. I guess I will just sit back and see how things pan out but, at the moment, I see nothing to refute my arguments that there are simply too many variables in the new QS system. the QS reporting system is not flexible enough to give meaningful advice (e.g.QS=4, "Keep it up! Your keyword, ad text and landing page quality are high." Huh?) there is definitely something out of kilter with the page 1 bid estimates! Too many keywords, irrespective of QS, where the bid is below the estimate yet ave. position is on page one and an equal number where the bid is well above the estimate but only appearing on page 2, 3 or 4. Chasing Quality Score is a "red herring". It is the wrong game to be in; we should be concentrating on performance and ignoring the actual QS, if it happens to go up fine but don't get obsessed with it. It just is not a meaningful measure of performance.
There you go People try and improve QS to reduce costs, that's it. Personally I could couldn't care less if my QS is 1 or 100 - I'm looking at ROI first and everything else is a distant, distant second. So if I'm getting a great ROI and notice my QS is "low" I'll see if I can't teak a few things to improve my QS (which helps ROI). Same on the other side - if I'm not generating the ROI I'M looking for and I have a low QS I'll see if I can improve it (to reduce costs) in order to the ROI where I need it. If QS is the first thing someone focuses on they're off track.
Well, I don't think so but I am likely to be driven insane trying to understand this new system. I presume from the tone of your post that you do see a link between QS and performance. If that is so you could perhaps explain this; Google says in the help file "How is my quality score used", Yet, in the fortnight following one third of my keywords dropping 3-4 QS points (and none improving) the ave. position rose and CPC fell 10% across my account as a whole? In the most extreme case one term had the QS drop from 8 to 4 after which it's position rose 10 places and CPC dropped 35%! As I say, please explain? PS. I would agree with your assessment that " Google’s First Page Bid Estimate Is A Farce" but do not fully agree with your reasoning. Yes, it does appear to work as a block on some "poor" keywords but on most others it just appears to be wrong as often as not.
Well QS and adwords positioning is really frustrating me as well. My adwords site's QS have been brought down to 3/10-5/10 recently so I started using my biggest sites to advertise on adwords (just to test the QS system). Well, in the last 2 days, my QS for my biggest sites are always 6/10 or 7/10. But still, I don't get it how could I don't get at least 8/10, beacuse I think I deserve it. My articles are long enough and very informative so why they are still 6 or 7/10? And about CTR that affects QS, that's absolutely absurd. My CTRs are above 6% and I'm bidding $1 per click (yes, it's a competitive keyword but NOT SUPER competitive). Yet, my QS is still 6-7/10? Why not better? (and my avg. position is 5-8. With the older system, my avg. position on the same keyword was 2-4. And it was with the same CTR!)
Suppose you are bidding $1 per click, and appearing in 3rd, with a Ranking Quality Score of 1.7. The person below you is bidding $1.1 per click, and appearing 4th, with a Ranking Quality Score of 1.5. Google works out your ranking by multiplying your bid by your QS. In this case, you get $1.70, compared to $1.65 for your competitor (hence you're above them). Your CPC is based on what you would need to pay to appear above them, so in this case, your adjusted bid would need to be $1.66, and your actual cpc = $1.66/1.7 = $0.98. What happens if your QS improves? If it improves a lot, you move up a place, which can increase or decrease your cost per click. If you stay in the same position, then your cost per click falls. Suppose that you improve from 1.7 to 1.8. You still need an adjusted bid of $1.66, but now your actual cpc = $1.66/1.8 = $0.93. You're paying $0.05 less per click than you had previously, and appearing in the same place. This gives you two alternative outcomes - you can pay less to appear in the same place, or you can keep your bid the same, and appear higher. Regarding your specific questions, here's where things get a bit complicated. Firstly, remember that the QS you are seeing is not your Ranking Quality Score, though the inputs are similar (so there should be some correlation). Secondly, remember that your overall average position is based on the number of impressions you get on each keyword multiplied by its average position. If you have two keywords, one appearing in 8th, and getting 100 impressions per day, and one in 6th, getting 200 impressions per day, your average position = ((100*8)+(200*6))/(100+200) = 6.67. But what happens if your advert in 8th drops to 12th? Suddenly, it's on page 2, and gets very few impressions - say 10. Now, your average position is ((10*12)+(200*6))/(10+200) = 6.29. Your average position improves. This is just one explanation. Your competitors may have been hit harder than you, in which case you will gain overall. The keywords that people search on may vary on different days or weeks. But in your case, a more likely explanation might be that there's a big difference between the performance of your search queries and the actual keyword. To quote Google, "For calculating first page bid, Quality Score doesn't consider the matched ad or search query, since this estimate appears as a metric in your account and doesn't vary per search query."
Thanks for that, CustardMite. In general I can appreciate what you are saying but I think my results so far have been so inconsistent that it is extremely difficult to see part QS is playing in matters. Two things here; Do you think there was a general realignment of Quality Scores across the whole adwords system about a fortnight ago? Clearly, I am not the only one on this board to have been effected and I know there is exactly the same discussion taking place on a couple of other boards. (Or - lightbulb moment! - could it simply have been Google switching on another large swathe of advertisers? I believe Google converted advertisers to the new system in tranches.) or, is it that there are too many of us trying to come to terms with the new system and, at the moment (in my niche anyway), there are simply too many changes taking place at once to be able to identify cause and effect? For example, my "extreme example" cited above returns more than 44 thousand sponsored results so if only 1% of advertisers make just one change in a day that is still an extra 440 variables I am contending with as well as those normally recalculated by Google for every search. As I say, just too many variables in the new system for one person to cope with and that leads me to ask if, given that the QS is a poor performance indicator (even Google suggest you do not rely on it!), we (the advertisers) need a dynamic QS system, anyway? Maybe once a day updating is more than adequate.
OK so cut the theory out. Now what do you think determine the quality score? Why one landing page could get QS as poor as 1/10 while the others could get 8/10? What's the main factor? THis is the real topic of the thread, btw.