I know that a landing page's quality score determines keywords' minimum bids; does it also influence ad positions? Thanks!
yes it can do. You can end up paying more but getting listed lower if you are deemed by the mighty google to be off topic or have a low quality score due or irrelevance.
From Google: For calculating a keyword-targeted ad's position on a search result page: * The historical CTR of the ad, the ad's display URL, and the matched keyword on Google; CTR on the Google Network is not considered * The relevance of the keyword and ad to the search query * Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account * Other relevance factors Hope this helps
The landing page would come under "Other relevance factors". Basically your landing page does not have a quality score in itself. It contributes to a keywords quality score. Since quality score affects your ad position, your landing page indirectly affects your ad position too. Advertisers are ranked based on quality score and CTR. Think of the following equation: Max CPC * QS Which expands to: Max CPC * ([Avg CTR + CTR History] * [Landing Page Relevance + Other Relevance Factors]) Example: three comapanies, A, B and C bidding on keyword with the same average CTRs and CTR history. Everything about their compaigns, including their ad, Max CPC etc. is identical. Company B has a better landing page than C and A and so is ranked first. If A were to improve their landing page, their overall QS would increase and they may get first spot. I say "may" because pos. 1 usally has a higher CTR and so company A would need to counter the affect of the higher CTR to get number 1. A better landing page may not be enough anymore (previously we assumed CTRs were the same). Hope that did not confuse you more than it did explain it...
Yes i have played with landing page quality and position. just remove privacy page, remove top keywords from title and add 3-4 spelling mistakes also add 4-5 aff. links at top then wait 2-3 days, you will see your ranking tumbled by 3-5 notched down with same cpc.
No. There are two different quality scores for keyword-targeted search campaigns, one for calculating minimum bid and another for calculating ad position/rank. For calculating a keyword's minimum bid: The keyword's historical click-through rate (CTR) on Google; CTR on the Google Network is not considered The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group The quality of your landing page Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account The historical CTR of the display URLs in the ad group Other relevance factors For calculating a keyword-targeted ad's position on a search result page: The historical CTR of the ad, the ad's display URL, and the matched keyword on Google; CTR on the Google Network is not considered The relevance of the keyword and ad to the search query Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account Other relevance factors As you can see, landing page quality only has a bearing on the quality score used to calculate minimum bid.