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Beware of Google Adwords Infamous Quality Score

Beware of Google Adwords Infamous "Quality Score" If you are new to, or considering Google Adwords pay per click online advertising Beware... Google uses an ambiguous so called "Quality Score" to supposedly make the information seekers search results more accurate. That's what they tell advertisers. Adwords also uses this ambiguous Quality Score in part as a means of supposedly measuring the effectiveness of an advertisers ad and landing pages. The "Quality Score" claims to determine if your ad and landing page is truly closely related to whatever keyword is being used at the time. Now the weird part about the Quality Score is that Google Adwords keeps the score a well guarded secret! It's like having to pass a test without knowing what exactly is required to pass the test. Advertiser are told periodically that they have fallen below the "Quality Score" and will either have to raise the bid amount of their keywords or re-write their ads or website landing page. Or their ads will be deactivated. Which means no business. So Google has a scoring system that advertisers must comply with, but they refuse to tell the advertisers what score is needed to avoid being penalized. Now at the same time, Google Adwords also takes this ambiguous Quality Score and also seems to use it as a means of eventually getting advertisers to raise their bids. And no matter how many changes you make to your ads or website, your campaign will be approved for a couple of days (maybe) and then out of nowhere, you get the Quality Score notice. Change your ads, landing page, or raise your bids. But there is only so much editing an advertiser can do with a 95 character plus spaces ad. Headline, Brief Description, Call to action. Maybe 15 words. And how can an advertiser effectively improve a landing page to meet "Quality Score" requirements, when the actual quality scoring" criteria is a closely guarded secret? And let's consider the "Quality Score in the context of relevancy... How abstract could a sane advertiser be in 95 characters including the spaces. What are we gonna do, go off on a two word tangent? Let's look at it like this, if you, most of your family, friends, and associates can understand your ads and landing page... Wouldn't a potential customer who is hopefully already looking for your product or service be able to comprehend your ad and landing page? To me this entire relevancy issue as applied to advertisers is questionable at best. In some ways it seems as though Google Adwords advertisers are being made to pay the price for technologies shortcomings, when it comes to interpreting and predicting human behavior with algorithms. Google Search uses a "shotgun approach" to for lack of a more elegant word, to lure "surfers" in. (ie. type in a couple of words or a phrase and "Search" or "Feel Lucky") Feel Lucky? How relevant is that? You can either "search for something" or you can be "feelin' lucky." Remember how you felt that time you were lost, and were not sure if you were heading in the right direction? Thats how I would describe "search" or "feelin lucky." These are two phrases that don't exactly inspire a lot of confidence when you are looking for something! Now at the same time Google is Searchin' or Feelin' lucky with keywords, they are demanding that advertisers fire with "laser like" precision, to hit a bullseye in our advertising campaigns, at the masses of people they bring to every 2 or 3 word search query. To make matters even worse Google Adwords hides the "bullseye." So the advertisers never knows whether they have hit the target or not! Remember, the "Quality Score" is a secret. After getting these "Quality Score" notices every few days, no matter what you try, eventually I think anyone who has a life to live just gives up on trying to improve the quality of their ads or website landing pages. For the sake of time,money and sanity we simply raises our bids. This is how it seems to work... Position #6... you need to raise your quality score or increase your bid. #5 gets the same message at the same time. Finally, positions #6 and #5 give up on quality scores and raise their bids. Then position #4... you need to raise your quality score or bid. #3 gets the same message at the same time, Raise Quality score or bid. They finally give up on the quality score and raise their bids. This eventually causes position #2 to raise their bid. Position # 1 always throws money at the situation. Guess who's next in line? Yep good ol' position #10. You need to improve your quality score or raise your bid. Position # 9 gets the same message at the same time! And up the "ladder" we go all over again! Next thing you know, a .05 cent keyword is selling for 100 dollars! And lets look at the end result... If every position complies, and everyone either improves their Quality Score, or raises their bid, The potential customer will still be looking at the exact same ads, maybe slightly different wording. And these ads will lead to the exact same website url's, and the potential customer will find the exact same products or services that they would have seen if nothing had changed at all. So who really benefits from all of this "Quality?" Was it the potential customer? The end results are the same for the customer. Was it the advertiser? The advertisers eventually had to raise their bids. Or spend tons of time guessing what is the problem THIS time? The keyword was just approved by the Google Adwords "Quality Team" yesterday! If you have at the very least a 7th grade education, and assuming your customers have at least a 7th grade education, how could they not be able to comprehend a 95 character, plus spaces description, of what they hopefully are already looking for? So who does this "Quality Score" really benefit? Next time I'll tell you how I work around the infamous Google Adwords "Quality Score." Thanks for your time. Nicholas Busbee Copyright © 2007 Nicholas Busbee, All Rights Reserved.

Nicholas Busbee has been in Sales, Public Speaking to groups of up to and over 20,000 people, and Radio Broadcasting from Classic Rock & Roll to Hip Hop & R+B, for over 25 years. (Jazz and Bluegrass Gospel too!) His website helps people start their own home based business online or offline, selling Master Resale licensed software,e books and instructional videos. www.BestCoolWebsiteTools.com/ <http://www.BestCoolWebsiteTools.com/>

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