The software Google uses to determine minimum bids supposedly based on landing page quality just does not work. They have increased our bids to $10.00 for the name of the store we are bidding on, whereas obscure terms like "Werckmeister Harmonies Damnation" which are not mentioned once on the landing page still have a minimum bid of $0.05. Because of the massive increase in minimum bids, Google have wiped out 90% of our keywords in one swoop - and most of them are highly relevant to the landing pages This is the most absurd development I have EVER witnessed in PPC.
The official instruction is to Contact support if you feel that your landing page is relevant for your keywords:
Hi All I had over 1200 keywords disabled. I spent most of yesterday going back over my keywords and deciding which ones I was really willing to pay for and I did up my bids. Traffic is starting to flow again but the cost is high. I am going to run with it for a couple of weeks to see what happens. I agree with google that the MFA sites clog up the system and offer little value, but my sites are not MFA and from what I have seen many of the people in this forum fall into the legitimate marketer category. Looks like google have used a sledge hammer to crack a nut shell. Regards Baz
I remember whining about a similar issue months back. Its weird now I have some keywords with a bid of $0.01 CPC showing on their search network and generating clicks. I'm not complaining this time around!
Could you please explain how you have come to know that we have used MFA creators? Are the websites in my sig. MFA? Or do you have some other knowledge about our network of sites? I have high quality sites. I worked as a full-time writer for years and often spend two days to write a one page article on my site. My sites have been mentioned on the BBC and won a Yahoo Site of the Week award. So before you about making blanket statements, please do your research. It does not benefit users of DP to make unfounded remarks. snoopsta - I agree with you. If it affects low grade MFA sites, then I don't care. But when it begins to affect webmasters with professional sites (read the hundreds of posts on WebmasterWorld and other forums) then Google have used a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
This move forces legitimate site owners advertising on AdWords to up their bids if they want to get their keywords active again. It means less revenues from the Adsense side of the equation (from MFA sites) but that's offset by increased revenues from AdWords by upping the bids to ridiculous levels. What's a webmaster to do? One workaround it to create a completely new domain and create a new campaign using those same disabled keywords and you will get the original bids back. You could create a link on the landing page to direct visitors back to your original website which is now not getting traffic direct from AdWords anymore. It's a longer path for the visitor but the alternative is to surrender to Google and pay those ridiculous bid prices!
Don't waste your $2.95 or $8.95 for nothing: AdWords consider the very last redirecting landing page for quality calculation. Even you create a new domain copy from the previous one the it will have the the same quality score and the bid prices will be the same. If you have a page the is very relevant for the keywords and your min bid prices is too high contact Support/
I'm not saying to do an auto redirect. Put up ad copy on that page and then include a link back to your original page. This new page should get its own quality score then, no?
-----Original Message----- From: AdWords Support ] Sent: Friday, July 14, 2006 9:32 AM To: Subject: Re: [#65329430] Jump from $.10 to $5.00???? Hello M, Thank you for your reply and I apologize for any frustration you may be experiencing. Per your request, I'm happy to escalate the landing pages in question to our Site Quality Specialists for review. In looking at your past emails, here is a list of the Ad Groups in question within Campaign 'Search:Sections:' 'Widget Operation Training' 'Small Widgets' 'Advanced Widget Training' If you would please also pass along the exact landing pages in your client's account #790-XXX-2680 you'd like our team to review, I will escalate this issue as soon as possible. If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords. We look forward to providing you and your clients with the most effective advertising available. Sincerely, Lauren D. The Google AdWords Agency Team ---------------- Content bids give you the impressive reach of the Google content network at prices you control. Give your clients the power of the content network while bidding to their specific ROI. Learn more about this great new feature: adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26507 Original Message Follows: ------------------------ From: "> Subject: RE: [#65329430] Jump from $.10 to $5.00???? Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 18:09:32 -0600 Per the official Adwords Blog of July 7th, "If you do see an increase in minimum bids and you feel that your landing page is providing a great user experience, please contact AdWords support and we'll take a look." Please "take a look" at the landing page or escalate this to someone who will. -----Original Message----- From: AdWords Support [mailto:adwords-support@google.com] Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 5:58 PM To: com Subject: Re: [#65329430] Jump from $.10 to $5.00???? Thank you for your email. If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords. We look forward to providing you and your clients with the most effective advertising available. Sincerely, Marco The Google AdWords Agency Team ---------------- Content bids give you the impressive reach of the Google content network at prices you control. Give your clients the power of the content network while bidding to their specific ROI. Learn more about this great new feature: adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26507 Original Message Follows: ------------------------ From: ".com> Subject: RE: [#65329430] Jump from $.10 to $5.00???? Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 16:37:21 -0600 Thank you for the very unsatisfactory canned reponse. Per the July 7 entry on the Adwords official blog (adwords.blogspot.com): "If you do see an increase in minimum bids and you feel that your landing page is providing a great user experience, please contact AdWords support and we'll take a look." Please re-read my original message below. I'm well aware of the algorithm change. My point was that my landing page IS relevant, in that it is an e'commerce page where products are sold which are EXACTLY what the customer is searching for. Therefore, I am asking that for the campaign listed below, you "take a look" as the blog entry says you will do. You will see that, for the keywords "flying widgets", we have a display URL which is "flyingwidgets.com." The landing page sells, you guessed, flying widgets! The word "widget" is used in the page title. The word "widget" is also used in the links below at least 3 times. If that isn't relevant, I really don't know what is! There is absolutely no difference in the relevancy between our ad and landing page and others which come up when a customer searches Google for "flying widgets." There are several of us with e'commerce sites who sell them. In addition, you have an Ebay ad which links to a flying widget search on Ebay. Our site is at least as relevant as Ebay! Go "take a look" M. Smith -----Original Message----- From: AdWords Support [mailto:adwords-support@google.com] Sent: Thursday, July 13, 2006 3:30 PM To: Subject: Re: [#65329430] Jump from $.10 to $5.00???? Hello M, Thank you for your email regarding your inactive keywords. I will answer all four of your emails with this response, since it is the same issue. The increase in your minimum cost-per-click (CPC), or your inactive keywords may be due to recent improvements to the AdWords performance monitoring system, which is intended to reward advertisers with the most relevant, well-targeted campaigns. We sometimes make changes to the AdWords system to ensure that the ads we display match our users' needs as closely as possible. This may affect the minimum CPC required to trigger ads. We have recently made changes to how we evaluate landing page quality. There's no one specific formula to determine the quality of a landing page or website. On a case-by-case basis, we'll evaluate the content, structure, and navigation of a website. Keep in mind, the most relevant landing pages will include a substantial amount of content that is highly relevant to not only your choice of keywords, but also to your ad text. The best way to figure out whether your keyword, ad, or landing page is relevant and useful is to put yourself in the shoes of a user. Do your ad and landing page include language that makes sense in the context of the keywords you've chosen? For example, if you've selected the keyword 'hiking shoes,' have you made sure that your ad mentions hiking shoes or related name brands? Does your landing page actually offer the name brands you mentioned, along with detailed information about this shoe type? Targeting your keywords, ads, and landing pages in this way likely will lead to several positive results. First, it can help you gain the trust of your customers and therefore keep them coming back to your site. You'll also minimize the money spent on clicks from users who might not be interested in what your website offers. And finally, you can increase your overall Quality Score and lower the minimum bid necessary for your ad to appear. To review the landing page and site quality guidelines, visit adwords.google.com/select/siteguidelines.html If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords. We look forward to providing you and your clients with the most effective advertising available. Sincerely, Marco The Google AdWords Agency Team If you have additional questions, please visit our Help Center at adwords.google.com/support to find answers to many frequently asked questions. Or, try our Learning Center at www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ for self-paced lessons that cover the scope of AdWords. We look forward to providing you and your clients with the most effective advertising available. Sincerely, Marco The Google AdWords Agency Team ---------------- Content bids give you the impressive reach of the Google content network at prices you control. Give your clients the power of the content network while bidding to their specific ROI. Learn more about this great new feature: adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=26507 Original Message Follows: ------------------------ From: MC Subject: Jump from $.10 to $5.00???? Date: Thu, 13 Jul 2006 00:07:15 -0000 I've been spending the last few days upping the bids on my clients' inactive keywords. Pretty much every campaign has numerous keywords ruled inactive, in spite of high CTR's and relevancy to the point that the keywords are represented by products on the landing page of the same name. One of my clients just had the minimums for 80% of their keywords raised indiscriminately to the point where they can't afford to advertise anymore. Client is 835-XXX-4798. Campaign is Search:Sections. Adgroup is Flying Widgets. We were averaging #3.6 for the keywords [flying widgets], "flight widget," flying widget. To be in that position, we were bidding $.10. Our CTR was 4.75% to 8.99%! The display URL was "flyingwidgetsw.com". Today we get "Inactive for search Increase quality or bid $5.00 to activate." Huh? From $.10 to $5.00? Increase quality when we our CTR's were so high and the FREAKING KEYWORD IS IN THE DISPLAY URL? Increase relevancy of the landing page when the page is full of, you guessed it, FLYIN WIDGETS! Oh, and for the misspelling [widgt flyin], the minimum jumped to $10! Many of the products on the page sell for less than $100. Tell me how we're supposed to make a profit on, say, a 5% CTR? Yet, I see Ebay and Cnet are still in the Top 10 for those keywords with their hugely irrevelevant generic boring old ads that no one ever clicks on. "You got some 'splainin' to do, Lucy!" We cannot bid any higher in this category: I either want my old $.10 minimum back or the rate Ebay and Cnet get, whichever is lower. I've put the campaign on Pause until I hear from you. MC
This would lead in traffic loss as you are placing the real targeting page a click away from the landing page. Also if you have competence in producing an alternate page with high relevance and great user user experience so don't make it an alternate page: Go on and change your landing page directly and your quality score will adjust automatically in 24 hours.
How sure are you about this? You mean to say that if my minimum bids go up to $5 and I change my page to improve the "quality", in 24 hours it gets reviewed and I could see those keywords go active again without me doing anything else besides improving the page? Don't you have to bid at least the minimum bid to reactivate those keywords first?
Oops! Long informative thread. Does adwords bid cost have anything to do with adsense displayed on the landing page? I remember seeing some thread mentioning this.
yes I'm quite sure: One of the factors that determine the quality score is the landing page relevance and minimum bid is calculated based on quality score. Quality score is evaluated every 24 hours. You can do a test yourself: 1) make a complete empty adgroup (no ads, no keywords) 2) add some keywords to the group but keep it with no ad At this point as there is not landing page, consequently the quality score is zero so all minimum bid go to $10 Now you chance the landing page: 3)add an ad that the landing page is very relevant to the keywords If the ad landing page is really relevant, After 24 hours (not instantly ) the minimum bid will decrease from $10.00 to the low values. This is a proof that the minimum bid is reevaluated at a maximum period of 24 hours after the landing page change - but it will decrease only if the new landing page is really relevant for the keywords.