I've been using the keyword tracker here for a long time, and decided to jump into the ad network last week. I put a single ad at the bottom of our forums, and then created two ads with the two most competitive keywords we target in the anchor text. We've struggled to stay on Google page 2 or 3 for these particular keywords. Suddenly, we're on page 1 for both, position 5 for one, 10 for the other. Now, I can't attribute it all to the ad network, Google has been bouncing around alot lately, and maybe we've done other things right to get this boost, but at least the ad network doesn't seem to be hurting, and the timing leads me to suspect that perhaps the ad network could be part of the reason. Thanks, DP!
How much weight did you assign to these keywords and how competetive are the keywords? (Number of competing pages in google) Matthew
number of pages in google isn't a good measure of how competitive it is. you have to check the number of backlinks to know how hard it'll be to rank.
Well, we joined the network and were assigned a weight of 10,650, I think. We're at 10,752 now, it's grown slightly. We've assigned equal weight to both keywords (keyphrases really). As far as competition numbers, WebCEO reports the following: 2,840,000 for the keyphrase that we're ranking #10 for now. 2,380,000 for the keyphrase that we're ranking #5 for now.
Exactly. Take this KW as an example: Results 1 - 10 of about 8,000,000,000 for... What is it? 8 Billion competitors... The word is "the". Competitive? I'd imagine it would be easy to rank high on actually. When people say high number of results means 'competitive' they mix it up with the key phrase being 'common'. A Wordtracker KEI analysis or a quick McDar session on the top 20 shows you real competitiveness of your targeted phrase.
The funny thing was in Dec, 2004 I had the same thing happen. Was #12 out of 33,000,000. Been that way for about 14 months prior. I joined the Co op and moved to #3 within 2 weeks. I can't say it was the co op for sure cause G was doing a PR update at the same time. When the PR update was complete I dropped 1 PR rank and gained several positions?? In the most recent backlink update I have noticed plenty of co op bl's in G. I have no doubt that the network will show quick results with SERP's. Just be careful if you have alot of weight when you join. I think you should watch assigning too much weight at one time on one keyword or phrase.
What would you say is too much weight? After joining, we were assigned about 10.5K in total weight, and we're distributing that evenly between two ads of our own. Is a little over 5K weight too much for a single ad? I'm guessing this is all speculative, as well?
I think you are fine. Anything over probably 30k might be too much. But really all you need to do is fine tune your weight so you stay atop of the SERPs
I am not sure what the magic number is but in my case I took approx 200/k over 30 days focussing on one keyword/ phrase. My result is #3 out of 33,000,000. Since Dec 04, I have noticed that G has been doing alot of changes/ tweaking so I can't say the co op is responsible for this but I can say it hasn't hurt.
It doesn't matter how many pages Google returns. If nobody is searching for the KW, then you won't get much traffic. You need to use Overture's Keyword tracker (or similiar) to determine how much traffic you would (should) get for that particuliar KW's #1 spot.
Its a shame I only have 279 weight at the moment, hopefully google will index my new pages soon and that should go up to a few k
Just an update. Yesterday, I was happy that we'd finally landed on page 1 for two competitive keyphrases we've struggled with for a long time, and started this thread. At the time we were at #5 for one keyphrase, #10 for the other. Now, just a day later, we're at #3 for the one, #5 for the other. Again, I don't know exactly what to attribute it to, but the timing of this unusual success within days (about 5) of joining the ad network seems odd. If it's the ad network, all I can say, again, is Thank You DP! If it's not, I'm sure we'll come crashing down again .
Well, saw some more shuffling today, and now we're #1 and #3. Now I'm worried about the Icarus effect