How are the Avg. Pos. and the corresponding Quality Score to your keywords directly related? Does the Quality Score directly determine the Average Position or does the Average Position determine the Quality Score? Or is it a mix of both? What do you guys think? Thank you, Bryan Roberts
This video (from google) will explain everything you're asking about http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7l0a2PVhPQ
QS is calculated by comparing all advertisers for a keyword. The biggest component of QS is CTR. Since CTR is affected by position, the QS calculation takes this into account. Therefore, say you have five advertisers grouped around a certain position, whether that's the first, third or tenth position, each advertiser's QS is calculated based on their relative CTR. The advertiser with the highest CTR of the group might get a QS of 10 but the last of the group may still get a decent QS of 7. It doesn't matter if the CTR is 1% or 10%. It's not an absolute percentage, it's a relative one. I'm just simplifying and the QS calculation is a lot more complicated that what I explain or what is explained in the video. But that's the essence of it. So the answer to your question is, there is no direct correlation of QS and position.
Click-through rate is definitely the major determinant of quality score which is why you should always go in with high bids when you first start an adwords campaign. This gives you higher positions and therefore a higher click-through rate, resulting in a better quality score.
Sooooo True. I see it a catch-22 situation. One of my products that I started promoting was very competitive, and I was paying $1 per click with a QS of 7/10. After about 400 impressions and getting a CTR of ~8%, my QS went to 10/10. I'm now paying $.50 per click. On the video by Google it shows a breakdown of what determines your QS. You can see it right here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7l0a2PVhPQ CTR is more than 50% of what determines your QS. Pretty interesting stuff.
Download the Adwords FAQ PDF for more. CTR represents at least 60% of the QS. However, fisher34 is wrong by saying you should bid higher at the start because QS is a relative measure of your quality against other advertisers.