The recent hoopla about Google modifying its Quality Score algorithm again to now affect Content bids brings to mind an interesting question which we’ll get to shortly.

First, as background, last week Google announced that they were going to assess the relevance & content of landing pages to ensure the “quality” of users’ post-click experience. Basically this means that they are applying the same Quality Score guidelines to Content ads as already applied to Search ads. At face value, they’re trying to weed out those click arbitrageur type sites where you can find yourself landing on page after page of sites containing AdSense ads (where each AdSense participant in this chain gets a little slice of the click cents earned.) I agree, this is not a good experience for anyone.

Sites judged with a poor landing page according to the Quality Score, have their ads’ minimum bid raised. So it’s now no longer worthwhile for those click arbitrageur/ “AdSense only” sites to bid to that level, since that cuts into their cut of click paybacks. If you don’t raise your minimum bid, your ad’s not shown (inactive.)

However, this *may* affect smaller advertisers who are legitimately trying to drive traffic to their sites to sell a product or service, if their landing page does not meet those QS guidelines. Bidding a higher minimum cpc in order to reactivate an ad, may in turn make the prospect of search and context advertising in Google, cost-ineffective. So is Google alienating those little guys who essentially helped build their company into a 130 billion dollar business? (Big advertisers accustomed to advertising “waste” probably won’t feel it in their pocketbooks as much as Maryjane’sCrochetShop.com).

On this topic, I’ve seen it argued elsewhere that Google did this in order to wring more bucks out of advertisers because now (more than ever?) they have highly-scrutinized quarterly earnings targets, so it’s all about the revenues.

So was the change revenues-driven or driven by a need for a better user experience? If the latter, great. We all hate those link-filled sites and they tend to clutter the heck out of many queries. If the former… well, let’s just say that they are in principle doing no evil because more revenue is a good thing. But now will smaller advertisers be left in the cold?

The key - according to Google, if you have quality landing pages as judged by Google your ads (content and search) should not be affected. I guess Google said it pretty well themselves: “We therefore encourage you to focus on building landing pages that are best for your users, whether they come from AdWords or other sources.” There is probably an appeals process if you feel your landing page has been unjustly “de-qualitized” - but I can’t find it anywhere…

Posted in: Default | Google