Evolution of the Quality Score – Part 2

With the Quality Score, Google has found a masterful way to make more money from its advertisers in the name of more relevant ads. As an advertiser, it comes down to one thing, the higher the Quality Score, the lower the actual minimum CPC bid. In a slight Catch-22, the only way to know the Quality Score, though, is by looking at each keyword’s minimum bid. The lower the minimum bid, the higher your keyword’s Quality Score. Simple right? Here in Part 2, we continue the history of the Quality Score and our quest for insights from both Google’s writings and the blogosphere.

November 6, 2006 – The Second Big One

Andrew C. returned to explain further developments to the algorithm, incorporating landing page quality into the Quality Score for contextually-targeted ads, using the same evaluation process as they do for ads showing on Google.com and the search network.

Say what you will about Google, but they know how to be methodical. Seemingly scatterbrained and pulled in all directions, the Quality Score changes taken together play out in a logical sequence with this most recent change, 16 or so months after the first announcement, completing the circle. It began with the introduction of the Quality Score. It continued by making sure to loop in all pieces of the process into its determination from keyword to landing page. Then, they made the first real tweak to algorithm after having six months worth of data. That tweak only impacted Google.com and its search network (Ask, AOL, etc.). This one continues the sweep by applying the algorithm to the ever more importance AdSense, the “contextually-targeted ads.”

How did Google apply the algorithm to its contextually-targeted, non-search inventory ads? By adding increased focus and importance on the landing page. High quality landing pages receive higher Quality Scores. But, much like the actual Quality Score, there is know sure way to know what really counts as “high quality” for a landing page. Here is what Google says a site should do.

• Provide relevant and substantial content, which includes

1. Try to provide information without requiring users to register. Or, provide a preview of what users will get by registering.
2. You should have unique content (should not be similar or nearly identical in appearance to another site).
3. Users should be able to easily find what your ad promises along with this example seemingly aimed at the incentive promotion (free iPod, free laptop, etc.) advertisers. “If you advertise an offer for a free product or service, users shouldn’t have to pass through excessive obstacles or make a purchase in order to receive the offer.”

• Treat a user’s personal information responsibly. This example tells it all, “If a user could receive promotional emails from multiple businesses, give the user the option to decline emails from all businesses, some businesses, or none at all.”
• Develop an easily navigable site. A point for the direct marketers, “Avoid excessive use of pop-ups, pop-unders, and other obtrusive elements throughout your site.”

Relevant content, the first of Google’s provided landing page guidelines can pose a challenge for those in the direct response space. Many are affiliates. We get paid by the same end advertiser and depending on the offer, it means sending the user to that advertisers’ page. As Shoemoney (http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/11/09/new-adwords-quality-score-bot-aims-to-nuke-arbitragers/) points point out, what many who seemed to get hurt didn’t do was mask their links, i.e. use redirects. Google doesn’t like doorway pages, so if a page seemed to contain nothing but links to outside sites, thus violating relevant and substantial content, it, in many cases, got dinged. Think back to the formula given in Part 1 courtesy of Google.

Quality Score = (keyword’s CTR, ad text relevance, keyword relevance, landing page relevance)* *Where the interactions between the Quality Score variables change as Google continues to refine how to measure and define quality in AdWords.

The November 2006 change saw yet another tweak to the variables, a fairly specific tweak to how they evaluate landing pages, especially for those advertising on the content network.

With each subsequent change, three things happen for advertisers a) nothing, b) they go back to the drawing board, adding content, changing links, and/or even their domain; or c) they get devastated to the point where none of the obvious modifications can help. Most people think of direct response advertisements as lacking brand, but what if you were a social network or peer to peer software that relied heavily on Google for new users. If you found your domain blacklisted, then what?

The evolution of search is just like email. In the beginning of email marketing, it was easy, and much like the wild west. If you could figure out a way to capture emails, you could make money because all you had to do was hit send. It soon became harder to capture emails; then it became much harder to get the emails you did have into the inboxes of the owners. People still make money via email, with the big guys making more now than they did during the initial land grab phase. What allowed certain people to grow while others didn’t? It was a focus on Technology, Knowledge, and Relationships. The same holds true with search, except today, Google is search, so to get good distribution in search means getting good at Google. And, it means investing in Technology, Knowledge, and Relationships. The biggest guys got big because they invested and keep investing.

Good Reads:

• Brad Geddes of eWhisper.net on the July 2006 change (http://www.ewhisper.net/blog/google-adwords-case-study-improving-landing-page-quality/)
• Google’s How is my keyword’s Quality Score used – Answer: minimum cpc, ad keyword status, and ad rank. Plus, it tells that there is more than one Quality Score. (https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=49174)
• Jonathan Mendez (http://www.optimizeandprophesize.com/jonathan_mendezs_blog/2006/11/what_googles_qu.html)
• Google’s Quality Based Bidding – older but good info on basics which still apply today, e.g. CTR and history. (https://adwords.google.com/select/qbb.html)
• Google AdWords Landing Page and Site Quality Guidelines – info on affiliates included (https://adwords.google.com/select/siteguidelines.html) and (https://adwords.google.com/select/guidelines.html)
• Graywolf’s Blog (http://www.wolf-howl.com/sem/murder-by-google-adwords/)
• Threadwatch (http://www.threadwatch.org/node/7386)
• Why does AdWords visit my ad’s landing page? (https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=38197)

Noteworthy:

• AdWords performance monitoring only considers your performance on Google properties.
• The formula used to define Quality Score is different for each ad type (text ads, video ads, etc.) Therefore, pricing, ranking, and keyword status may occur differently for each ad type and the networks where they are shown.