Quality Score Blog Posts

Google Quality Score Update

Thursday, October 6th, 2011

Google, PPC, Quality Score

Google have announced that they are changing the way they calculate the Adwords Quality Score. Going forwards, they are going to place a higher weighting on the user experience – specifically, the keyword relevance and landing page quality.

Their announcement in full reads as follows:

When searching on Google, users appreciate results that are relevant and deliver a great experience after they click. In August, we announced trials in Brazil, Spanish-speaking Latin America, Spain, and Portugal1 that increased the weight given to relevance and landing page quality in determining Quality Score and how ads are ranked on Google. The goal was to improve the user experience with search ads. Based on the results we’ve been seeing, we’re now rolling these changes out globally over the coming weeks. (more…)

no comments

Decoding the Quality Score

Tuesday, April 26th, 2011

Google, PPC, Quality Score

Improving your click through rate improves your Quality Score. This you probably already know. But how high is a high click through rate? What is a decent click through rate for a given position? How do you know if your Quality Score is being dragged down by the Account Quality Score or your adverts?

These are questions that everyone that manages an Adwords account has asked at some point. So I decided to find out. As a large agency, we are in the position of having far more data to analyse than most people, and by manipulating this data, we’ve found some very clear and consistent trends, that have given us unique insights into what click through rate Google are looking for in order to consider you ‘relevant’, and how they take your position into account.

So here’s what I did. I pulled out the data for the last 30 days for every keyword, in every Ad Group, in every campaign, in every account that we manage. I stripped out any Phrase and Broad Match keywords (since QS is calculated on Exact Match), Google’s Search Partners data (since this is ignored in the calculation) and brand terms (which would skew the click through rate analysis significantly – more about this later). (more…)

15 comments

Google AdWords Expert – Agency Secrets Revealed Part One

Friday, April 8th, 2011

Adgroups, Bidding, Featured, Google Adwords, Google AdWords Expert, PPC Campaigns, PPC Management, PPC Optimisation, Quality Score

Adwords is a bit complicated. There’s no way to get around the fact. Sometimes, it feels to new users to be a minefield – you make one mistake, and it can cost you a fortune. This can understandably be quite stressful, and even off-putting to some advertisers!

Even experienced users of Adwords, such as agencies, make mistakes, and can cost their clients money and ultimately cost themselves accounts. It’s very rare that I’ve accessed an account, whether managed by an agency or by an individual, where mistakes aren’t being made.

But fear not! Help is at hand. Perhaps the most easy-to-understand, but powerful guide ever written on how to advertise on Adwords is now being serialised on the Epiphany Solutions Blog for the first time.

This is the first part of that serialisation. It gives an overview of what Adwords is, where it is and isn’t useful, and the advantages and disadvantages of PPC against SEO. Future parts will look at each aspect of an Adwords account, and show what you should do in order to deliver amazing results, and perhaps more importantly, why the account should be set up and managed in this way. (more…)

no comments

‘Raven’ About Quality Scores

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Featured, PPC, Quality Score

Once upon a Monday dreary, while I entered a search query
Into Google, haven of quaint volumes of forgotten lore
While I nodded, nearly napping, I considered words, which tapping
Brought forth ads attention trapping, trapping my attention’s core
‘Tis a trickster,’ this I muttered, ‘trapping my attention’s core
Only this, and nothing more.’ (more…)

5 comments

The Pros And Cons Of Brand Bidding

Friday, May 22nd, 2009

brand bidding, Google Adwords, Google Adwords Blog, PPC Campaigns, Quality Score

Just read a blog posted yesterday from E-Consultancy: http://econsultancy.com/blog/3817-paid-search-down

It appears that the percentage of clicks going on Paid Search is falling, which is potentially a misleading statistic (see my blog on Google and the 80:20 ratio). But they make another, very interesting point.  They indicate that the biggest fall is on brand-name keywords, and quote Andy Beal at Marketing Pilgrim, who says:
“Is that likely due to a reduction in spend, or Orbitz et al figuring out that they really don’t need to spend so much on paid advertising–considering they’re #1 in the organic results?” (more…)

no comments

« Older Entries