From Great to poor in the last few hours...

More like: We want sites with affiliate links to advertise with AdWords and pay more

Just out of curiosity...have you considered removing the aff liks on the site to see if that changes the $10 bids....or, landing visitors a page away from the page that includes the affiliate link?

 

Thanks for the idea I've just set-up a new ad, landing on a page with no aff. links, will update if I get bid lower then $10.

However I think the $10/bid is the one you get when you get manually flagged, after your competitions rep. agreed to do it...

Cheers,
Chris

 

I think Google has taken Quality Score way too far. I can understand that they want the landing page to have some relevancy to the ad. But couldn't it just be a title or h1 tag and some basic content that shows the page is relevant to the ad? Forcing landing pages for ads to be like organic search result pages where unique content is key, is ridiculous.

As others have mentioned, people research in the search results section and buy in the adwords section. If the ad says "Red Widgets Model 3123 - $9.99! Buy now and get one free", and the customer searched for 'buy red widget 3123', they want to buy the product not sit there and read a privacy policy.

To me, that landing page (with basic content about Buying Model 3123 Red Widgets) is relevant to what the customer wanted. Obviously if an advertiser pays more, targets their keywords better, and uses a few of the keywords on their page, they are more relevant than another page/affiliate and should therefore come up better in results. That is competition and offers choice for users instead of only one merchant.

Each product sells in a different way and it's not always appropriate to have a site with articles and a forum. The Internet has allowed people to find what they want right away and sometimes a page that does just that, quickly, is the right solution. I would have thought that when an advertiser says that they have improved their site to raise their QS, that Google would check it quickly (not weeks to months) and assist so that the advertiser can get back on board and make money (and stay with Google as a happy advertiser). In the advertising world, I take out an ad to advertise now, not in a few weeks or months.

 

eepruls I agree 100%. It's really obvious when you think about and Google must have been thinking about this. They can't be that slow?!?

My conclusion is that we have a game of "cat and mouse" going on between Affiliates (maybe even certain merchants/distributors) going on. This game will probably last for a little while. At this point I'm guessing the game will last years.

Just if it not clear, Google is the cat and we are the "mousies". Tom & Jerry was one of my favorite cartoons so I have no problem playing that game.
And 30 years later Jerry is still outsmarting Tom...he...he...

On the technical side.

GFC: Bids still at $10 (was landing to page with no aff links).

Also tried, 2 days ago, to disable visits from the Adwords bot (explicitly in robots.txt) still $10/bid.

This leads me to believe, with near certainty, that some sites are manually flags and stay that way, until the "system" can review the site. I think Google talks of the "system" as their entire process (including the human manual review process and automated analysis algorithms).

Does anyone have experience with opening 2 Google accounts; or know a friend that has experience with that situation?

One for a company (Corporate-S) and one personal. Of course one would never promote the same URL on both but was thinking about this as a potentiel way to temporize google's "mood swings". Sort of like a spare wheel on a car...

Feedback on this question will be highly appreciated...

Cheers,
Chris

 

Landing pages might only get reviewed monthly. I don't think making a change for a day or two is sufficient to see the impact.

See this - http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=49063

Especially this part: "As a guide, if you've significantly improved the quality of your landing page, you should see lower minimum CPC bid requirements for your keywords. You will probably not see an impact within the first few days but should see results over time."

This too - https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=47885

In regard to multiple accounts - I've done it ever since I can remember. Helps in testing various things.

Simply having the word(s) on the page does not mean the page is about that topic or at all "relevant" to the ad. There's more to quality thatn just the text.

 

Thanks GFC good stuff. Any recommended particularities like different CC, Name, Address ?

I can confirm that Adsbot-Google obeys the robots.txt (no visit since 06/22).
I might be "shooting myself in the foot" with that instruction so will remove it.

Adsbot-Google visited 4 to 5 times on 6/21 and every day since the slap.

I'm ready to launch new site...

Cheers,
Chris

 

Mine are under seperate corporations, so everything from the CC to the address is different. A corporation is overkill if you're just doing it for AdWords imo...the ones I use already existed for other business ventures so it was a no brainer for me. If I were setting one up for just AdWords I would most likely go with an LLC. Less paperwork.

Good luck!

 

Thanks for the info

 

A work around Black Hat style.

The slap appears to be based upon a manual or automatic flagging of the domain that the ad is sent to.

Soloution:

Trick adsbot into believing that ads are being sent to a different unflagged domain.

How to do it:

Create a mirror of your site on a new domain. Set your ads up to point to the relevant page on your new domain. On your new domain create a script that detects if the visitor is adsbot. If its a visit from adsbot then do nothing, let it crawl your new domain. If its not adsbot then its a valid click through in this case 301 the visitor to the relevant page on your old domain.

 

Short term thinking. Do you want your business/income to be based on a "trick"? Not I.

 

i'd rather have it based on a trick than pay $10 per click

 

Like I said, short term thinking.

To each their own.

 

did any of you guys who have been having min bid problems use google analytics by any chance?
sorry if it's already been answered...

 

Read the thread

I use Ganalytics on sites that have no issues with high min bids. So if your theory is that the two are related...

 

Not so much a theory but a question Is it possible? I met a number of people who are completely paranoid about not using GA b/c they "don't want Google to know their business". Granted they are pros at data mining but it just doesn't seem too plausible to me. I just wanted to know if anyone ever saw any empirical data confirming the Hal-like "evilness" of Google Analytics.

 

Anything's possible but not everything's practical

People are way to paranoid imo.

 

Google's "evilness" is becoming more and more apparent. Have no doubt Google will maximi$e any data it can.
Check these articles out: Google privacy 'worst on the Web'
http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/internet/06/11/google.privacy.ap/index.html

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/04/20/news/privacy.php

http://news.com.com/European+officials+question+Googles+privacy+policy/2100-1030_3-6186840.html

Pretty ironic that Google favors sites with a privacy policy when theirs is the "'worst on the Web'.
2 years of keeping logs on your searches an improvement ?!? How about 0 days .... like most would expect.

I think short term thinking is also good. To properly deal with G you need short term and long term thinking not just one or the other.

Thanks for the tip. Frankly to me Google's responses are pretty black hat.

And for your entertainment the latest response from G:

Frankly responses like that are "black hat". They are systematical ignoring the specific questions we asked with generic general issues about landing pages in the most vague terms.

Anyway my new site works so "forget abouutt itttt" trying dealing with Google like they are a normal company.

Cheers,
Chris

 

You've been SLAPPED buddy

 

Wow, insightful post mayi. As for the rest of this Google annoyance. I recommend that you add unique content and create SEO redirects on the pages -- You could use http://yourdomain.com/yourproduct.php and have that page redirect to the site you want OR you could always use affiliate link cloakers such as TinyURL. I'll look into this more but the whole let's mess with the affiliate marketers is pretty gay.

Overall: Use cloaked links, comparison tables/unique content/review on the product(s) chosen and be sure to keep the landing pages HIGHLY AdWords optimized.

 

This same thing happened to me on thursday. My ads sence have stopped running completely. I spend about $30,000/month on adwords too.

I created a new domain and its listed as #4 with a great quality score.

My old domain has a poor quality score, ranked $17, and bids are $1+(bids normally 30-60 cents).

I am going to try deleting my old campaign and running the new one on my new domain and see how it goes.