Beware of Google Adwords 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 measuring the effectiveness of an advertisers ad.

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!

So 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 precisely what score is needed to avoid being penalized.

Now at the same time, Google Adwords also takes this ambiguous Quality Score and seems to use it as a means of eventually getting advertisers to raise their bids.

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.

How abstract could a sane advertiser be in 95 characters including the spaces.

what are we going to do, go off on a two word tangent?

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,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 raises their bid automatically.

Guess who’s next in line?

Yep good old position number 10. You need to improve your quality score or raise your bid. Position # 9 gets the same message at the same time!

And the circle starts all over again!

Next thing you know, a 5 cent keyword is selling for 10.00 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 websites. The information seeker or potential customers will find the exact same end result they would have seen if nothing had changed at all.

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.(spend more money)So who does the “Quality Score” really benefit?

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?

The best advice that I can give you about starting a pay per click account using Google Adwords is this… Read the Google Adwords Help Forum. Start in the Basics section. Read the user comments about the Quality Score issues.

And don’t just check out the newer post, go back a few months into the older post. After you read the post, ask yourself does the quality score issue seem to be resolved? Take notice of several of the other ongoing Adwords account issues also.

You may not understand all of the issues involved, by not having an account, but you will certainly be able to understand user fears and frustrations that seem to be ongoing.

If you are a new account holder you can expect to experience similar problems to occur on your account.

Thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to read this article. I appreciate your effort.

Copyright © 2007 Nicholas Busbee, All Rights Reserved