Google- YOU’RE not Transparent, You Hypocrites.
November 13, 2007 by Pablo Palatnik
Another conversation with Google reps over at Adwords leads me to more frustration with the Adwords platform.
Ok, so you’re running a company that’s worth billions. You’re #1 priority should be pleasing your customers (NOT JUST USERS, WHAT ABOUT ADVERTISERS?!?) I’ve read the quality score guidelines 10 times and as an online marketer who has done this for a living for a long time now, I find it a bit annoying when they talk to me like I’ve never heard of the quality score before.
From Google’s quality score guidelines:
Transparency In order to build trust with users, your site should be explicit in three primary areas: the nature of your business; how your site interacts with a visitor’s computer; and how you intend to use a visitor’s personal information (they spell information wrong BTW on the site), if you request it. Here are tips on maximizing your site’s transparency:
Your business information:
• Openly share information about your business. Clearly define what your business is or does.
• Honor the deals and offers you promote in your ad.
• Deliver products and services as promised.
• Only charge users for the products and services that they order and successfully receive.
• Distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content.â€
Point #1: Openly share information about your business.†Okay, so you tell me (on the phone and in this guideline) I’m not transparent enough¦WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!? Why don’t you tell me exactly why you’re all of a sudden taking my quality score that was great for MONTHS and now all of a sudden it doesn’t fit the needs of users…hence my good CTR’s. Why can’t Google say, Hey, change this or add that, or there is your problem. MAYBE, sometimes they give you that on stuff we already know…put a privacy policy, an about us, and the factors we all know…but even with all the factors, quality score just isn’t an accurate tool or just isn’t transparent. WHY?
Organically, maybe they aren’t transparent because once the Algo is known, SEOs will be all over it of course,but this is PAID FOR. If an advertiser is trying to make the site as relevant as possible, HELP THEM OUT. Tell them exactly what they need to do to get where they want…will make us both more money. Better results. Better advertiser satisfaction.
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Comments (13)
As an SEO, I understand “quality score” is just a different name for the ambiguity known as “algorithmic relevance” and the ability to traverse this relevance is how we get sites ranked in the natural search results.
Quality score is a combined logic and word puzzle and due to its implementation in the PPC arena, the most cost effective campaigns have started taking on a bit of an SEO flavor. With an understanding of how Google values the words on your site compared to the words on your competitors sites, your costs per click are reduced and you end up with better conversion rates.
With that being said however, I think people across the board are questioning the costs per click they’re seeing in their campaigns and some might say that Google is disguising a price hike by hiding behind the term “quality score”.
Chris-
I agree with you in some aspect of the understanding of SEO coming into play with a PPC campaign now (if that’s what you’re saying.)
Also, quality score=price hike is absolutely correct. I could go on about this topic forever though…some things seem legit…some don’t.
Hi P,
I understand all your concerns about quality scores and all, but as an experienced advertiser you probably already know (or should!) a: what Google expects from you b: what it will expect in the future ie what direction are these guidelines going to?
I find that if you consider these two factors into the strtegic planning of your campaign, you just cant go wrong with quality scores…
RE: “Why can’t Google say, “Hey, change this or add that, or there is your problem.â€
don’t you think that Google has better things to do than go through every single account and tell every single advertiser that one of their ads could perform better? the quality score tool (magnifying glass) is already evry helpfull is finding out which aspects of your ad could perform better, of course they don’t say exactly how this should be done… plus if they did, you probably would not run ppc for clients, as they could do it themselves… don’t you think?
@ Eloi-
I have to disagree with you on this.
“don’t you think that Google has better things to do than go through every single account and tell every single advertiser that one of their ads could perform better?”
1- I don’t think Google has anything better to do then to better instruct their advertisers so we can spend more money with them.
2- I never asked for Google to tell me what ad is performing better but give me more of a reason why a keyword goes from being cents in minimum price bid and I was bidding way over that, to $5 or $10 minimum when the keyword and site are VERY RELEVANT to each other (NO SPAM)
They are all about sites giving as much information as possible to users to better understand their product or service when I don’t think they do the same for us.
Hey Pablo,
“1- I don’t think Google has anything better to do then to better instruct their advertisers so we can spend more money with them.”
That’s one way to put it.
I personally am happy to have the insider knowledge I have, by this I mean that for the moment, SEOs are still the best people to run PPC campaigns. If Google did tell you everything you need to know about PPC, you, Pablo, wouldnt run a client’s PPC campaign, as they could do it themself. Or are you saying Google should give us the info, but no one else?
Regarding your second point, that does sound quite crazy. did you transfer these keywords to a new campaign before this happened? Are you usin the same landing page? Has it got the exact same meta data?
I don’t think that’d be the case. I’m not saying TELL ME EVERYTHING, all I’m saying is be a bit more transparent. Give me some reasons, not just send me the same thing (QS guidelines page) every time I have a question about the subject.
It could just come down to better customer service. I know a lot of clients that know exactly how to set-up PPC campaigns but they don’t have the time to focus on it (if its easy or hard doesn’t matter)…the upside of hiring people like us is know are very up-to-date on what’s going on and since we do it all day, from one success, we can replicate it to other campaigns.
I’m pretty sure I know what I have to do to get my QS back to what it was I just don’t agree with a companies policies being pure speculative.
Some things do play on the positive for us prof online marketers, but they hide many things from us as well.
I am using the same keywords, etc but I did change some things around. I’m going to build much tighter ad groups and change some things in my landing page around. I can post the site I have up now and the changes I made if that may help anyone, we’ll turn it into a case study and see.
Pablo, I feel ya. I’m still mystified as to how, for example, a keyword ad for “Duran Duran” promoting “New CD ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ at x.xx” price point that leads directly to the product page with that price reflected has a “low quality score”.
Sigh.
@ John- Do you mind sharing the link?
Sure:
http://www.wherehouse.com/music/product-detail.jsp?id=2708722
John, how long did it take for your quality score to drop? Are you competing against someone else maybe on the same landing page or display URL? Is it Poor? OK? (The quality score that is)
The only thing I would add if it were my site is maybe try to get a CD review from someone (or maybe even a couple) and use it as content for not only the user but also Google. I think there may be a lack of content issue there as far as quality score goes, thats my only guess and would be surprised if thats not it.
If your keywords are as targeted as you say they are towards the Duran Duran cd, you should be good (more content.)
Funny you suggest that – the product pages usually have a review pulled from the AMG site – this particular product is too new to have one yet. The quality score dropped 24 hours after I began bidding on “duran duran” (poor). No competition for the landing page.
Add the content or once its added by the webmaster, contact Google and let them know you made changes to improve quality score on your landing page.
Also, try to have some keyword density in the content for what you’re bidding for.
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