Pause versus Delete Keywords

I am just wondering if it makes any difference whether you pause a keyword or delete it?

I have been pausing my keywords in order to keep track of which have been tried and which have not but I am worried that all the paused keywords could be reducing my quality score.

Is this possible or am I just being ridiculous?

 

My understanding is that a paused keyword doesn't count against your account quality score. You should be OK just pausing them. That's what I do. But if the keyword is a lost cause, you might as well just delete it. Once, I was making some bulk changes in adwords editor and accidentally turned on some paused keywords with poor quality scores.

 

Unfortunately, paused AND deleted keywords and ads still impact quality score. Go figure...

 

Undercover1: There is an account performance history, so in that sense you are right. Do you have a source to back up your statement? I believe that pausing or deleting keywords and ads stops their negative influence.

 

I just delete poor performing keywords so they do not cause confusion later. I believe they also do not affect scoring once they are deleted.

 

Yes I would be very interested to hear what you have to back up that claim please.

Thanks

Mike

 

Google does not penalize you for pausing a keyword. You can keep it paused indefinitely.

 

Undercover1's right: account history impacts quality, so deleted, paused or not, all keywords and ads influence quality score.

The only difference is that you can easily unpause a paused keyword. Deleted keywords can't be resumed, unless you re-add the keyword to the ad group. It will then resume as before, with the previous stats.

 

If you delete a keyword, and then add it again later, the history is gone. This strongly suggests that it no longer affects your quality score etc when deleted.

 

My take on this is that the historic account CTR, etc. that effects QS is constantly updated such that individual keyword data is "locked in". Deleting or pausing a keyword makes no difference the data is already factored into the calculation. e.g. a simple way to do this would be,

Open a new account.
Day 1 Account CTR = no data
Day 2 Account CTR = ave. CTR of all keywords on day 1 / 1 (no. of days account active) = X1
Day 3 Account CTR = (X1 + ave. CTR of all keywords on day 2) / 2 = X2
Day 4 Account CTR = (X2 + ave. CTR of all keywords on day 3) / 3 = X3
and so on.

Xn (where n is number of days account has been operating) - the historic account CTR - will contain the data from all keywords used in the account up to that point, active, paused or deleted.