Quality Score

QUIT YOUR DAY JOB PRESENTS

The Unofficial Guide to Google’s Quality Score

By Jeremy Palmer

Copyright 2007, Quit Your Day Job, LLC

August 2007

by Jeremy Palmer

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Introduction Since late 2005 affiliates have been tormented by the "Google Slap". One day your campaigns are up and running without a hitch ‐ making a nice profit, and then without notice you see this message in your account: “Keyword(s) are currently inactive for search. Increase quality or bid $10.00 to activate]” You quickly go into a panic knowing that your once profitable campaign is now history.

After being slapped in the face, you spend hours reading Google’s official help guide, only to find you now have more questions than answers.

So you reach out to your favorite webmaster forum to see that everybody’s talking about their quality score problems, but few are actually offering solutions... or at least solutions that work ;) Over the past 18 months I’ve received hundreds of e‐mails and have read thousands of posts from discouraged affiliates whose business has been turned upside down by Google’s quality score.

Unfortunately, even many of my own profitable keywords have been disabled by random quality score updates.

After hours of research, some trial and error, and a lot of hands‐on experience, I’ve come up with some proven best practices and easy to understand guidelines that will help you keep your keywords running at full strength.

I hope you find this guide helpful and will use it to keep your click prices low and your click‐throughs and conversions high.

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Background on Google’s Quality Score As I mentioned in the introduction, Google began beta testing a new algorithm for their AdWords pay per click program in late 2005. Before this change, Google’s ad scoring system was very easy to understand. Your ad position was determined by your maximum bid price and your ad’s click‐through rate (CTR).

In other words: Max CPC x CTR = Ad Score This formula allowed Google to maximize their effective CPM (earnings per 1,000 page views) by moving the top performing ads to the top of the search results.

As long as your ad was relevant to your keyword, and you didn’t have any editorial issues, your ads would run without a problem.

But Google started to recognize that many advertisers, particularly affiliates, were sending visitors to sites with similar content, shallow content, or virtually no content. They realized that if people using Google started to perceive the ads as “low‐quality”, people might not click on them as often. The less people click, the less Google makes.

So in order to ensure people kept clicking on the ads, Google decided to start evaluating and scoring advertisers landing pages, more specifically their content, as part of their ad scoring system.

The Official Definition of “Quality Score” According to Google: Quality Score is the basis for measuring the quality and relevance of your ads and determining your minimum CPC bid for Google and the search network. This score is determined by your keyword's click‐ through rate (CTR) on Google, and the relevance of your ad text, keyword, and landing page.

We believe high quality ads attract more clicks, encourage user trust, and result in better long‐term performance. To encourage relevant and successful ads within AdWords, our system defines a Quality Score to set your keyword status, minimum CPC bid, and ad rank for the ad auction. http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=21388 As you can see, Google’s main concern is quality and positive user experience. When people find value in the ads they click on them and everybody’s happy.

Quality Score – The Aftermath When Google started rolling out these changes, advertisers began noticing large groups of keywords in their accounts had been disabled. Websites with affiliate offers, and advertisers using squeeze pages were among the hardest hit.

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Within hours webmaster forums lit up with discussions about Google’s latest AdWords update. Most site owners were in shock and couldn’t figure out why their ads had been disabled. Unfortunately, Google offered little condolences and advice to their advertisers.

With each iteration of the quality score algorithm more affiliates would get wiped out. It seemed like nobody was immune.

After the dust settled and affiliates began cleaning up the rubble from their once profitable campaigns, some best practices and working guidelines started to emerge, which helped affiliates get their keywords back online.

Affiliates began comparing notes, revealing discussions with their Google Ad reps, visiting pay per click forums, and carefully studying any “official” communication from Google about the quality score updates.

Quality Score – Half Man Half Machine Perhaps one of the biggest misunderstandings about Google’s quality score is that it’s entirely based on some fancy algorithm. People fail to recognize that there is also a human component.

When you submit your ads on Google they usually go live in just a few minutes ‐ without editorial review.

Before your campaign goes to a human editor, the Google Ad Bot crawls your landing page, including any outbound links, to verify that your keywords and ad copy are relevant to the content on your page.

If the Ad Bot doesn’t find relevant content, you may notice a “Poor” quality rating next to your keyword even before you get any impressions or clicks.

In addition to that first crawl, the Google Ad Bot may revisit your site several times to verify your landing page quality.

Another important aspect of the quality score algorithm is your click history. If your click‐through rate is below average you may notice your minimum bid prices going up.

To summarize there are three variables that factor into your quality score: • • •

Google Ad Bot Your click history (Human) editorial review

Now that you’re armed with some background information, let’s move on to talk about some specific strategies you can use to improve your site’s quality score.

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The Confluence of Paid and Natural Search Google has often stated that being an AdWords advertiser doesn’t buy you preferential treatment in the natural search results. The only way your site may benefit organically from AdWords is by Google discovering previously unknown content through your ad campaign. So basically you can’t buy your way to the top of the natural search listings.

However, on the flip side, authority sites with strong organic rankings may be benefiting from an increased quality score in paid search.

I use Google AdWords to advertise dozens of unique sites and I’ve seen some strong evidence that suggests Google is favoring sites with strong organic presence. Many webmasters have also cited anecdotal evidence of this.

There’s no official word from Google as to whether or not your site’s quality score will improve based on your organic position, which is why I’m calling this document the “unofficial guide”.

Even if you don’t get a lift in quality score from having a high ranking organic site, your paid search campaigns can still benefit from search engine optimization techniques, especially when it comes to writing good and accessible content.

Content is King in Both Paid and Organic Search Everybody is familiar with this old cliché. If there’s one thing all search engine experts can agree on it’s the fact that content is one of the most important ranking factors in natural search.

It was only recently that webmasters started recognizing the power of original content in paid search.

Before Google’s quality score update, affiliates could get away with “thin landing pages with no links to substantive content.

Original content is something that Google has gone on the record and talked about. In their online AdWords documentation they have a post about creating quality landing pages. You can read it here: http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=47884 Here’s a summary of what they’re telling advertisers (in bold), along with my interpretations: Google: Provide relevant and substantial content.

Jeremy: Give site visitors a good reason to come to your page. Information is the currency of the web. If you removed all the affiliate links on your page, would the visitor still find value in it?

Google: If users don't quickly see what they clicked on your ad to find, they'll leave your site frustrated and may never return to your site or click on ads in the future. Here are some pointers for making sure that doesn't happen:

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Jeremy: Make sure that you feature your keywords and message from your ad copy prominently on your site.

Google: Link to the page on your site that provides the most useful and accurate information about the product or service in your ad.

Jeremy: This is pretty self‐explanatory. Don’t link to your home page or other generic product catalog page. Link to or create a detailed landing page with your product offer. Not only does this help your quality score, but it will increase your conversion rate too. Remember, the less a user has to click to find what they’re looking for, the more likely they are to buy.

Google: If your site displays advertising, distinguish sponsored links from the rest of your site content.

Jeremy: I always recommend putting a disclosure statement somewhere on your website. This lets people know that your review, or product information may be influenced by financial relationships, and it just makes good business sense.

You don’t have to scream it to the visitor when they land on your site, but a nice link in the footer of your landing page will satisfy this requirement. You can get a sample disclosure policy on DisclosurePolicy.org.

Google: Try to provide information without requiring users to register. Or, provide a preview of what users will get by registering.

Jeremy: In other words “WE HATE SQUEEZE PAGES”. Google doesn’t like when you box your site visitors in a corner. Give them some content to review on your landing page. You can still use an opt‐in, but just make sure your page consists of more than a simple name and e‐mail form.

Google: In general, build pages that provide substantial and useful information to the end‐user. If your landing page consists of mostly ads or general search results (such as a directory or catalog page), you should provide as much information as you can beyond what your ad describes. For example, if your ad mentions <'Free travel information,' your landing page should feature free travel information (versus links to other sites that do).

Jeremy: This is Google saying we hate “Made for AdSense” (MFA) sites. This is also known as AdSense arbitrage, or more correctly “Garbitrage”. If you’re going to do a directory or product rating site, put in a few paragraphs about each product or service on your landing page. You may also consider adding a form where users can rate or review services themselves. Google loves quality user‐generated content.

Google: You should have unique content (should not be similar or nearly identical in appearance to another site). For more information, see our affiliate guidelines.

Jeremy: Take a look at your competitors and make sure you make a strong effort to make your content and landing page look unique. Co‐branded affiliate landing pages were once very popular, but as you can see Google will axe these pages in a New York minute.

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Google: Starting with your ad, each interaction you have with your potential and existing customers should be geared towards building a trusting relationship.

Jeremy: Have a privacy policy and link to it from your landing page. Also make sure you follow CAN‐ SPAM guidelines.

I recommend using the privacy policy generator, if you don’t already have one on your site: http://www.the‐dma.org/privacy/creating.shtml Google: Users should be able to easily find what your ad promises.

Jeremy: If your ad says “10% discount” make sure the user can find it within two seconds of arriving on your landing page.

Google: Openly share information about your business. Clearly define what your business is or does.

Jeremy: A good “About Us” page goes a long way in building trust and credibility with your site visitors.

Link to it from your landing page and put it in the website footer with other important policies and legal disclosures.

Google: Deliver products, goods, and services as promised on your site.

Jeremy: Google wants users to trust the companies they find through AdWords. Don’t disappoint them by advertising “free ringtone offers” that really aren’t free.

Google: Develop an easily navigable site Jeremy: If you can’t put all your good content on your landing page link to link to related interior pages from your landing page.

Extra credit ‐ Another usability suggestion would be to add a search box somewhere on your site so users can type‐in their own queries.

The Relationship Between Your Keywords, Ad and Landing Page In order to have a good quality score it’s important to make sure your keyword is highly relevant to your ad copy and landing page. In the past it was easy to satisfy this requirement by using dynamic keyword insertion, but Google has recently confirmed that they use the “Default Ad Text” and Destination URL from your ad group, and don’t plug the keyword into your ad when considering quality score.

The first thing you can do to improve the relationships between your keywords, ads and landing pages is to organize your keywords into closely related categories, or ad groups.

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Consider the following keywords: HP notebooks HP laptops HP desktop HP Pavilion notebook HP dv9000 HP Pavilion HDX HP Pavilion dv9500t HP Pavilion dv6000z From this list you can see that these keywords are all related, but some are more closely related than others. You could create a single ad group with one ad and one landing page, but if somebody clicked on your ad and went to a landing page with all of these computers they could easily get lost and become frustrated.

You have to realize that people on the Internet have a really short attention span. If they can’t find what they want on your page within a few seconds, there’s a good chance they’ll click their back button and never return.

It’s also important to consider how Google will perceive this page. Are you selling HP desktops, HP laptops, or both? It’s always best to have a singular focus so Google can understand your content better.

Rather than sticking all of these keywords into one ad group it would make more sense to create at least 4 different ad groups for this keyword list. That way you can write better ad copy and send customers to more targeted landing pages.

If this were my campaign I would create 4 distinct ad groups: Ad Group 1 – HP Notebooks I would send this to a page featuring different notebook categories.

Ad Group 2 – HP Laptops I would probably send this customer to page similar to Ad Group 1, but I would use the word “Laptop” in my ad copy and landing page rather than notebook.

Ad Group 3 – HP Desktops I would create an ad and landing page that featured different desktop categories.

Ad Group 4 – HP Pavilion I would create a page dedicated to HP Pavilion notebooks. An even better strategy would be to break this ad group down even further by notebook model.

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A general rule of thumb is that it’s better to have more ad groups with fewer keywords, than fewer ad groups with more keywords. This not only helps your Google quality score, but it also helps the customer find what they’re looking for and increase your conversion rate.

Dynamic Keyword Insertion Before Google introduced the quality score update, I was a big fan of dynamic keyword insertion. It was really good for situations where you had thousands of related products, like DVD titles, but with different titles. With dynamic keyword insertion you can dynamically insert the movie title in your ad copy when a user does a search for your keyword.

The problem with dynamic keyword insertion is that Google looks at your default ad text when determining your quality score, not the keyword that will be plugged into your ad.

Let me explain this in more detail…

Let’s say this is your ad: {KeyWord:Get any DVD for $0.99} Buy {KeyWord:movies} for $0.99 Limited offer. Learn more. www.mymoviesite.com And this is your keyword list: Top Gun Mission Impossible Die Hard Cool Hand Luke When a user does a search for one of these movies, the movie title will automatically be plugged into the ad. The text “KeyWord” is replaced with the movie title.

The text “Get any DVD for $0.99” from the ad headline, and “movies” from the first line of the ad description are referred to as the default ad text. This is the ad text that Google uses when the keyword doesn’t fit into the ad. For example, let’s say your movie title is 40 characters long. This would exceed the maximum characters allowed in the title, thus Google would show your default ad text.

When Google evaluates the relevancy of your ad they don’t plug your keywords into the ad, they refer to the default ad text. So if your keyword was “Top Gun”, Google would compare that keyword to your default ad copy “Get any DVD for $0.99”.

In my opinion this is a flaw in Google’s quality scoring system that should be remedied soon. I’ve had large groups of keywords with movie titles, authors, and model numbers disabled because they didn’t evaluate the ad with dynamic keyword insertion.

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Until this issue is sorted out, it’s recommended that you create ad groups based on how closely the keywords are related to each other. This may result in thousands of ad groups – with only a few keywords in each, but if you want to have a high quality score you should consider this strategy.

This recommendation is based on how the system works in August of 2007. I’m hoping that in the very near future I will be able to re‐write or remove this section entirely. If you’re reading a printed version of this, or are reading this in 2008 – check to see if I’ve updated my advice – http://www.quityourdayjob.com/qualityscore.pdf

Software Recommendation Setting up your keywords into several ad groups can be time consuming and error prone. I highly recommend Speed PPC to help you setup your keywords, ad groups and landing pages. The software was designed with having a good quality score in mind.

Please see my complete review of Speed PPC here ‐ http://www.quityourdayjob.com/blog/2007/08/29/speed‐ppc‐review/

Conclusion The only constant in business is change. In order to succeed in the online world you must be able to adapt your business. Those who fail to adapt will ultimately go under.

Quality score is a feature that is here to stay, in fact, Yahoo and Microsoft have also recently started incorporating landing page relevancy into their ad scoring algorithms. The advice I’ve recommended in this document can generally be applied to all of the major search engines who use quality scoring criteria.

I hope you found this document useful, and encourage you to put what you’ve learned into practice.

For more information about paid search and affiliate marketing visit Quit Your Day Job – www.quityourdayjob.com Best, Jeremy