| | | Google AdWords Quality Score:
Present and Future
 Last week, Google AdWords revealed upcoming changes in the way their system will assess and assign a Quality Score to elements of your AdWords account. These improvements have already been implemented on a small scale and will be applicable to all AdWords accounts upon completion of their limited testing. If you are new to AdWords, a basic overview of Quality Score can be found at the AdWords Help Center.
Improvements being tested:
1. Quality Score accuracy: The new method for determining Quality Score will focus on assessment of the quality of the ad whenever it is triggered by a search query. This will shift the emphasis from the current system of assigning a relatively static value to individual keywords focusing more on specific ad relevance.
2. Keywords will no longer be inactive for search: Keywords will be allowed to trigger ad display any time there is available budget, unless they are paused or deleted. Currently, if keywords don't meet the minimum cost per click bid rate, they become inactive until the bid is raised.
3. First page bid: Currently ad display (regardless of page position) requires meeting or exceeding an absolute minimum bid set by Google. This will be replaced by first page bid which is the estimated minimum bid to achieve ad display position on the first page (top 8 ads)
It will be interesting to see how well this works out, although I wonder if they will do away with showing Quality Score altogether. Hopefully, they will implement some sort of improvement over the existing Quality Score listing by keyword. One thing on my wish list would be a display of current Quality Score between keywords and each active ad in an Ad Group.
Quality Score - Info, Tips and Tricks
The following is some basic information on Quality Score as well as some interesting tips. This information is summarily derived from a compilation of notes StepForth Web Marketing CEO Ross Dunn made from each of the four speakers at the "Ads in a Quality Score World" seminar he attended at SES - San Jose last week. My own comments follow each speaker's points.
1. From Ron Jones - President of Symetri Internet Marketing
- Quality Score is driven by: historical CTR (click through rate) of each keyword, relevance of the keyword to the displayed ad in its Ad Group, quality of your landing page, and account wide historical CTR.
- Ad Position is driven by: Quality Score and max bid.
- Placement on Content Sites is driven by: Past performance, relevance of the ads and keywords in the ad group to the site displaying the ad, and the quality of your landing page.
Tim's Comment: This is grassroots information and understanding this is vital.
2. From Brad Geddes - Founder of bgTheory.com
- Google Quality Score Determines: Minimum bids, ad position/rank, eligibility for display in both Search and Content. Note: If a keyword is not active in search it may show up in contextual.
Here is a handy chart Quality Score Factors ChartTIPS:
You can go into the AdWords reporting and run a report of the minimum bids and drop them into Excel and sort by price. The highest minimum bids are where quality score should be worked on.
Keyword quality score for search does NOT consider landing pages.
Focus on the 25 cent+ bids, as optimization has negligible impact on anything below that.
It is more useful to have 100 adgroups with only 10 words each than 10 groups with a 100 words each.
Landing page load time is not considered in relation to competitors sites.
- Content Network: Google looks at: Click through rate on specific sites, relevance of keywords and ad copy in the ad group to the specific site, and landing page quality.
Tim's Comment: Some very interesting tips brought up here. I had not heard that keyword quality score does not consider landing pages, but upon consideration it would at least partially explain some of the oddness I've noticed from time to time when viewing keyword QS.
3. From Kendall Allen - Media, Marketing & Advertising Senior Executive - Client and Partner Advisor
- Landing Page Content should be: Robust, descriptive and clear, should be useful, relevant and a direct response to the search query, as well as unique to your sites.
- Site Navigation: Make it easy and offer direct connections
- Transparency: Nature of the business should be crystal clear, interaction with the computer (cookie expiration) for protection of User Privacy.
- Load Time (VERY important addition to QS consideration): Minimize number of redirects, consider workarounds for slow servers, in addition to balance design and content considerations.
Tim's Comment: This is all vital information for increasing the quality of the landing pages. When we first look at prospective new client sites, these are among the first things to be assessed.
4. From Misty Locke - President of Range Online Media
- Look at your campaigns: Keywords, organization, match type of the keywords - make your keyword lists granular, fine tuning is very important, and ensure creative ad copy and landing pages.
TIPS:
Every keyword you have should be on every match type.
Keyword insertion should be used sparingly. The campaign should be more granular so it is not necessary to use often.
Split campaigns by match type (exact, phrase and broad).
Split campaigns by brand vs. non-brand.
Create ultra-granular ad groups, draft keyword specific copy for each ad group.
Greatly expand keyword list, incorporate keyword negatives.
The goal is to capture every possible relevant query as an exact match. This will provide you with the highest click through rate, which will improve quality score.
Tim's Comment: Making campaigns for broad, phrase and exact match type for all keywords is an interesting approach. This might seem to be a lot of extra work, but using AdWords Editor it would be a breeze. I would only test one campaign at a time though, leaving the other 2 paused. Otherwise Google will regard them as duplicate keywords.
All in all, it is obvious Quality Score is a very important aspect to keep in mind when working within AdWords. Running a successful, cost-effective campaign depends on understanding and making allowance for the Quality Score system.
| | Lawsuit Against Google over Voicemail Patent
Is there no end to lawsuits against Google? On Tuesday Judah Klausner, an inventor from San Francisco, filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Google, Verizon, LG, Citrix Systems, Comverse Technology, and Embarq.
Klausner's company, Klausner Technologies, filed a patent back in 1992 for "visual voicemail", a way to apply a graphical means of interacting with voicemail messages, similar to the use of e-mail.
Back in June, Klausner had a similar lawsuit settled against Apple, AT&T, and eBay (Skype) over its "visual voicemail" features on iPhone devices.
Verizon apparently had anticipated the lawsuit from Klausner and two weeks ago filed their own lawsuit in US District Court, to have the inventor's patent declared invalid.
In an article published on Reuters Tuesday Jim Smith, a Verizon spokesman stated: "We anticipated Klausner's action. We are seeking a declaration that Klausner's visual voicemail patent is invalid and that Verizon's system does not infringe the patent in any event."
The latest lawsuit is just a series of suits filed by Klausner dating back to the first in 2005 against AOL.
by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO | | Yahoo to set up shop in Nebraska?
 According to ABC 9 Eyewitness News, Yahoo has applied for a huge state tax break to help them setup shop in La Vista NE.
In order to qualify for the tax breaks Yahoo would have to create a minimum 50 jobs with an average salary of at least $68,700, and invest $100 million over a four year period.
The application for these tax breaks however is no guarantee of Yahoo's plans to build in Nebraska. It's interesting to note that with all the financial trouble Yahoo seems to be having, that they may be willing to move forward with such a huge development.
by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO | | Google Cows Point North
 The Los Angeles Times reports German researchers, through the help of Google Earth, have discovered that 2 out of 3 cows point North. Using Google Earth, the researchers studied more than 300 herds of cattle from around the world. Of the 8510 cows they observed, two thirds of them had aligned themselves to face magnetic north while grazing or resting. This is the first discovery of large land mammals to have this built-in compass. Other animals such as birds and most bees have a similar trait to aid with migration. So, if you ever find your self lost out at the farm, take a look at the nearby cows to help guide you safely home.
by Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO
| The Net Reality: Brayden's Net Travels
Technology, gadgets and games. These three magic words can lure out the inner geek in us all. So, for this week's net news - I'd like to tell you about some cool and crazy developments in the land of geekdom.
First off, the lead designer behind the massively successful The Sims games is about to release his opus (I hope). The new game is called Spore. It will allow players to create their own virtual life forms. Each game will begin with a single celled organism that will - with the right player influence - evolve into an intergalactic planet colonizing empire. This ambitious title will be released on Sept 7, 2008. (However, by the time this game is released, I may want to follow this article's recommendation for utilizing dual-monitors.)
Good news for 3-D technology; Intel and Dreamworks decided to get together. The two teams are working together to create the upcoming animated feature Monsters Vs Aliens. They say the new 3-D is so good that it may "spark a revolutionary change" in the movie industry.
Other highlights:
Cells phones and Microsoft's X-Box will soon allow users to cast votes on anything from products to politics. National Geographic will be expanding its widget program, which means that a lot more puzzles are coming the net's way. Customer service phone trees may become much easier to tolerate due to the efforts of Fonolo.com. The future is looking bright for tongue (user) interface. Soon computers will understand our curses (But, will they like it?)
WiFi usage on airplanes grows now that a fourth airline offers the service to its passengers. Robot AI is getting smarter. So smart in fact, that, smart people are starting to say that a computer brain will soon exceed the human brain's potential. (Sounds quite possible, so long as Microsoft doesn't develop the robots' OS.)
Google is now showing off design images of Android: the iPhone's biggest new threat. (No smudgable touch screen -- I like it!) Developers think they have found a way around Apple's restrictive NDA rule that forbids open discussions about how to work with the iPhone's development kit. The developers are avoiding the threat of Apple's legal wrath by sharing their input with each other for the sum of $1.
Soon, plugging in to recharge electronic devices will no longer be required. Power Transmission may give more truth to the phrase "the future is wireless" than anything has before.
Finally, for those who enjoy a good audio-book over a computer game or cell phone, there are products out there for you. MP3 Insider's editors have some cost saving recommendations that you may want to know about.
Hope you all enjoy the Labor Day weekend!
By Brayden Reger, Sales Associate | | | | | | | | Top Web Marketing Articles from StepForth
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