I have been pondering the almost impenetrable workings of the new QS system (without a great deal of success, it has to be said) and I am led to conclude that the system is basically unfair and designed to deliberately force up bids. It is clearly stated that Click Through Rate (CTR) is a factor in the Quality Score. But, we all know that CTR is a direct correlation of position. Therefore, the more you bid the higher your QS and conversely if you deliberately bid for a lower position your QS will be penalized. Hence, the system is inherently unfair and biased towards "the money" since your bid is a contributory factor to Quality Score - something Google does not advise us of. I have already remarked in another thread that I have seen this happen on my campaign - the QS of keywords for which I am bidding below the first page estimate has decreased. The fact that the first page estimates continue to rise for some terms would suggest there is a bidding war going on among some campaign managers who are presumably determined to get on page one at any cost. I should add that all the evidence from my campaign suggests that if you simply ignore it all nothing much changes. In general, those keywords affected still get the same number of impressions at the same average position as before. (Contradictorily, I have one keyword where the average position has risen 10 places and the average cost per click reduced 35% despite the QS dropping from 8 to 5. ) So, three questions; Has anybody else seen similar evidence in their campaigns? Is Quality Score genuinely a factor in ad placement for search? Is this a deliberate ploy by Google to mislead advertisers and boost revenue? And, one piece of advice, if you see your QS change for the worse, "DON'T PANIC!" and wait a while to see what happens before making any hasty changes.b
I think you have hit the nailon the head. I have keywords with QS 3 that are doing really well! I would ignore the new QS.
That is what is happening with me. I have been bidding 0.25 on a particular keyword which receives a lot of impressions and I'm ranked around 7th on average. Now Google stated last week that the minimum first page bid is 0.45 - yet I'm on the first page! It then went down to 0.40 and today is now 0.35. My Min Bid has stayed constant throughout (Adwords Editor) at 0.03 since before the changes, yet my Quality Score has risen from 5/10 to 6/10 over the last few days. My advice would be to just concentrate on what's working for you and not what someone else is doing: Seeing the min first page bid and upping their Max CPC without even thinking if they can justify such a decision.
This isn't true, at least in principal, as Google take the position of your advert into account when calculating your Quality Score. In practice, it often doesn't work perfectly, and you can improve your Quality Score by increasing your bids, then reducing your bids as your QS improves, until your bids return to their previous level, with a higher position. Regarding the first-page bids, it doesn't surprise me that people are increasing their bids - the gaps in bids between the bottom of page one, and the top of page two, is generally small, and the benefits of the slightly higher bids are bound to encourage increased bids, and hence bid inflation. Since the changes, I've noticed very little has changed, with a few aberrations. Quality Score remains critical, and you can still get a good Quality Score from a modest position.
Sorry, not sure I follow you - what is not true? That is exactly my point. Your bid decides your position and hence QS yet QS is theoretically a crucial factor in setting your bid. In essence Google have created a feedback loop - which is great for them since if it actually worked* it would mean advertisers constantly having to increase their bids just to stay stationary, but not so good for those on a tight budget. (BTW. Do you find that system for improving your qs/position still works with the new dynamic QS?) Re. page one, what you say has always been the case I think, but I am concerned that the new "suggested bid" system is generating bidding wars unnecessarily. I suspect many may be following the advice without question when increased bids are actually not required I have many keywords that Google says are below the 1st page bid still showing as high as ave. pos. 3 (and with a QS of only 2 or 3!!). Exactly. I have not changed any of my bids, adverts or landing pages since the new system was introduced. The only changes I have noticed have been reductions in QS on those keywords where I do not bid for page one. However, the drop in QS has had no effect on performance except for a couple of aberrations where performance has improved as QS declines. So, I must beg to differ when you assert QS "remains critical". * It clearly is not -yet! Surely, if the system was working we should see average positions changing with QS; I have not seen any evidence of this so far.b
CTR in relation to determining the QS is normalized by ad position. You're not penalized for lower CTR's in lower positions just like you're not rewarded for higher CTR's in higher positions. Could not agree more. It's pretty much the same old same old with a new interface that gives a little more transparency.
Okay, thanks for that. So, CTR only affects QS if it significantly and, presumably, consistently over or under performs compared to the norm for a particular position. And, according to Google, it is the CTR and not position per se that affects QS so, I guess that puts a hole in my theory. Back to the drawing board. Glad you find it clearer, it is getting muddier every day from my stats! Do you think the system is still sorting itself out and will settle down to show consistent stats? At the moment mine are all over the place with seemingly no real correlation between QS and performance.
Could you clarify a little or provide examples? I really don't understand what you mean by "settle down and show consistent stats".
(In the following please bear in mind that I have made NO changes to my account, i.e. bids, ads or landing pages since this new system began) Basically, changes in QS have not been reflected in the words performance. I had many QS drops about a week ago and the majority have made no difference but there have been a couple of aberrations, i.e. my keyword phrase "silver jewellery" It started at QS 8 and I have been bidding for it to appear on page 5 of results, i.e. ave. position between 32 and 40. Last week the score dropped to 5 but in the days following the average position slowly improved and peaked at 24 two days ago whilst the average CPC dropped from £0.14(my bid) to 0.09. Yesterday ave. pos. dropped back to 29 with CPC 0.10 Today, the QS has dropped to 4 but ave pos. is slightly up and CPC is still 0.10. Or, I have another keyword that started at QS 5. Under the old system I was not prepared to bid the £2 per click minimum but under the new system it started getting 100s of impressions per day at ave pos about 3. Last week the QS dropped to 2 and for 7 days there was no discernible difference in performance except ave position rose to 2.2. Yesterday the QS rose to 3, again no effect. Today the QS is back to 2 and the impressions are down 90% but position is still 2.2. In general I have many keywords where the QS has dropped 3 points or more. There have been a couple of increases of 1 or 2 points. Overall there has been little discernible change to ad position but CTR has improved slightly while average CPC has dropped about 10%. To my mind this is all contrary to expectation but, as you can imagine, I am actually quite happy with the new system; If this is what happens with falling QS I can't wait to see what happens now I have begun optimization!
I think you are a little confused on how google relates CTR with position and QS. QS is not a relation to how high your CTR is in general, but how high your CTR is in relation to the position you are bidding for Example Scenario 1 Your opening bid is $1 and based on googles initial algo they determine that through the evaluation of your landing page, keyword and text ad that your are basically aiming for position 5. Google then figures out the historical advertisers average for position 5 which lets assume they determine is 1%. So they set your initial QS at 6 and then send you some traffic to see how your really do. Now lets assume they give you 500 impressions and your text ad does a .85% CTR. Google has given your text ad 5 times the average CTR to see if your text ad performs as well or better then other advertisers. Since your ad is performing at .85% you are under performing so they drop your QS to 5 and stick you in position 6 and then repeat this process again to see if you do better is position 6 with your CTR against the historical averages. Lets assume position 6 averages .75% CTR and they deliver another 500 impressions to your ad and your CTR goes to .80% you are now performing better than the average advertiser with a QS of 5 in position 6. Example Scenario 2 You open your bid with $5 to aim for position 1, they do the whole initial evaluation and your QS comes out to a 6 because the initial landing page evaluation is still the same as scenario 1. You get some traffic and CTR is 5% but historical average are 6% so your QS goes to 5 and your position drops to 2. Then in position 2 your CTR is 4% and historical average is 5% but since you are bidding so high google makes more with your lower QS and higher average CPC so you remain in position 2 with a high average CPC and an average QS. So in both situations google evaluated you the same, but bid and CTR determined your final outcome in relation to position. You still ended up with the same QS either way. In scenario 1 your CTR was much lower in the .80% range and in scenario 2 your CTR was 4% but you still end up with a QS of 5. Why? because your bid and QS is in relation to positional CTR not CTR in general. This is a very confusing and hard to understand topic for many, but I hope this clarifies it just a little bit. This is also another reason why I stress the fact that glancing at CTR and see a 1% or 5% can not determine how well your campaign is doing. CTR is not an indicator of a successful campaign. I manage plenty of campaign with average CTRs under 1% with high QS of 7, 8, 9 and 10. Now with the new release of the QS system to show advertisers what the bid should be for the first page I think has caused many more uneducated advertisers to bid higher. Many advertisers used to just bid the min bid allowable by google and now that this has been replaced with the first page min bid, those same advertisers are now all going to aim for the min 1st page spot. This in effect will cause a rise in 1st page bidders for a short period of time while the system and advertisers adjust. Many will drop out in the long run, but yes I would agree current average are higher due to this. But it will all even out eventually So in response to your Q's 1. I think we all agree that avg CPC is higher due to the reasons listed above that many uneducated advertisers are now realizing that min bid does not place them on the first page and now that there is only the first page min bid, uneducated advertisers are going to bid higher to meet the new minimums. 2. QS is a very important factor as described in the scenarios listed above 3. No i do not think its a ploy to boost revenue, but more as a way to weed out all those advertisers that thought they can enter the dating , technology , mortgage, insurance and payday industries with min bids of .10. Then google gets a call from these people complaining that they are bidding the minimums but they are not getting any traffic or impressions. If you see your QS drop you need to consider it ASAP. It means your initial quality is not good but may go back up if your text ad starts performing all of a sudden. Most likely due to competitor drop out
Thanks Robert, I have more or less got to grips with the theory of "normalization of CTR". But, I am still failing to see much evidence that QS is a factor in position. I gave an example in post#9 above of the bizarre behaviour of my keyword "silver jewellery". Matters have not improved since today the QS is back up to 5 but average position has dropped back to 31! I am still puzzled why the QS on this keyword is now so low given Historically the keyword has a CTR of nearly 0.4% which I would have thought was pretty high for a page 5 result from among 44.5k sponsored results. Google think the term is relevant enough to place me on page 2 or 3 of the natural/organic listings (from c. 2.5 million results). Google tell me "Your keyword, ad text and landing page quality are high." And yet they have cut the QS from 8 to 4 or 5! Any thoughts. Regarding the new dynamic QS system I do feel it is still "sorting itself out" - I still have far too many keywords getting dozens, even 100s, of impressions although G says are not triggering ads and too many others where I am bidding well below (in one case less than 10%!) the 1st page estimate yet getting shown as high as ave. position 2 or 3. Perhaps, it is simply a case of too many of us trying to adjust our campaigns in response and there are now so many variables constantly changing that it becomes almost impossible for us to know what is actually affecting the results. there is not enough "flexibility" or a wide enough scope in Google's reporting system to truly accurately reflect performance.
Sounds like competitors coming in and out of the market causing positional and avg CPC changes. QS will also fluctuate based on your new position because if your in position 34 with a CTR of X% you might have a QS of 8 because you are out performing those advertisers in position 34 but when competitors drop out and your new position is 24 your text ad is underperforming and thus QS drops to 5 even though you are in a higher position. This is my take on it... hope that helps explain the difference....
Sounds reasonable. As I suggested in my last post it could be that too many of us are "chasing our own tails" trying to get on top of the new system and making so many "simultaneous" changes that it is hard to know who or what is the actual contributory factor in the movements. Yes, that would make sense if the QS was changing as a result of movement but what I have been seeing with the small number of my keywords that have shown any significant positional change is that it has been contrary to expectation and after the change in QS, i.e. the QS drops and average position subsequently rises, QS rises and average position drops. Again, it could just be a result of changing market factors as above but if so it reinforces my argument that with dynamic QS there are now too many variables to allow accurate control of campaigns. I am curious though; is it only "amateurs" like myself who are seeing keywords that were "great" for 18 months suddenly drop to "okay" or "poor" overnight? Are there no "big guns" on this board with similar experience?
Of course, if the impact to the Quality Score was the same for everyone, then it would make no difference to any of the bids. It would only affect the minimum bids, but those don't exist any more (apparently).
But, if it is not the same then it is not an objective measure and is therefore irrelevant - we may as well not know what it is. Admittedly, this seems to be the only way to operate under the new system, i.e totally ignore QS, minimum suggested bids, etc. and just follow the numbers. Perhaps, that is why G themselves suggest, The BIG problem with that advice (IMHO) is that there are still way too many keywords where I am bidding 5 or 6 times the minimum bid with (QS 8-10) and only getting average positions on page 2 or 3. At the same time I have probably an equal number of terms where I am bidding way under the suggestion and appearing well up page 1 (in one case I am bidding 1/10th the suggestion and averaging position 2 with a "poor" quality keyword!). Along with all those terms that Google tells me are not triggering ads yet record 100s of impressions a day I would estimate that for 30-40% of my keywords I am getting no intelligible advice from Google at all. Well, that is okay for those who have been in the game a while and will continue to use their own judgement, but for many of us the new system is presented as an improvement and a means to greater control and an aid to running our campaigns and it simply is not doing that job.
You can't use the first page bid to determine if your QS is improving or not, basically because it goes up and down dependant on what the 1st page bidders are performing like and what their max bid is. This would be like measuring your QS based on your position. Instead, I still use the Min Bid as my main guide, which is available in report form and included on my weekly reports (when I do most the changing of my bids). The Min Bid is also still shown in Adwords Editor, to check now and then. I'm waiting and hoping that the */10 QS indicator, will be included in reports, so that you can see at a glance whether your QS has improved or not, on perhaps a daily or weekly basis, without the need to go through each keyword individually and check it all manually, which simply isn't how it should be. The bottom line is, if your QS is 9 or 10/10 and your min bid is low... and you are still down the ranks, your only real alternative is to bid more. Can you justify bidding more? If the answer is no, then don't. The people who are raising their Max Bids to appear on the first page may soon realise that it's not profitable and eventually, lower their bids again. If you are producing an adgroup from scratch then the first page bid might be useful, as you can make sure the Max Bid you start with, is near or above that figure, but only time will tell if your ROI is worth being on the first page or not.
Well, I agree but that quote came from one of the Google help files on QS and performance. Seems to me it is just sowing more seeds of confusion because with the numbers all over the place as I indicated the first page bid estimate actually tells you "b*ggar all!" Me too, but I read somewhere yesterday that it is coming to adwords editor soon.