credit: smashz
Due to illness I am writing more about Quality Score, rather than coming up with a new idea.
From Google:
I. Quality Score for Google and the Search Network
While we continue to refine our Quality Score formulas for Google and the search network, the core components remain more or less the same:
- The historical clickthrough rate (CTR) of the keyword and the matched ad on Google; note that CTR on the Google Network only ever impacts Quality Score on the Google Network—not on Google
- 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
- The quality of your landing page
- The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group
- The relevance of the keyword and the matched ad to the search query
- Your account’s performance in the geographical region where the ad will be shown
- Other relevance factors
Note that there are slight variations to the Quality Score formula when it affects ad position and first page bid:
- For calculating a keyword-targeted ad’s position, landing page quality is not a factor. Also, when calculating ad position on a search network placement, Quality Score considers the CTR on that particular search network partner in addition to CTR on Google.
- For calculating first page bid, Quality Score doesn’t consider the matched ad or search query, since this estimate appears as a metric in your account and doesn’t vary per search query.
For those of you that have not looked at the breakdown in an account Google gives you a score based on a 10 point scale. The easiest way to get the first three points is to have a Keyword that matches Ad Text that matches Landing Page Text. So after taking care of the things you control you are at 3 of 10, or Poor. The other 7 factors are not things that you have no control of.
Your historical data is a combination of your clickthrough rate and traffic you have generated, that means the amount of money you spend. Google has at times, during phone calls, suggested that one should pay for higher placement to get better CTR, and thus better historical values. That is not a fair indicator. If your ROI doesn’t hold out at the higher placement you are going to be punished by the system in the form of a higher cost for first page bid.
Your performance in a specific geographic area is another rather opaque performance indicator. If you are don’t do as well in a location you are considered of lesser quality. But, agian, that is going to be based on CTR; if someone local is buying out your first spot you will see a decrease CTR and a loss of “Quality”
The new UI changes also hide the new first page bid cost. In total the new changes have made it harder to track the user important indicators, like minimum cost, and factors that may be hurting your results. Now that on-page best practices account for less than 50% of the quality score you should all consider calling Google directly at 1 (866) 246 6453. Ask them what you should do.
Here is what they say:
- Match Type Doesn’t Affect QS (unless you count CTR values)
- Put A Call To Action in Your Ad
- Geo-targeting Doesn’t Effect Quality
- Buy #1 Placement
The most annoying aspect of the new factors is the Query Relevance factor; according to Google if you bid on Green Beans you are of suspect relevance if you have a page that sells green jelly beans. So Google feels that you have less right to show, and thus should pay more, than someone with Green Been Recipies. That seems a bit arbitrary.
