Just wondering what your overall CTR is on Adwords. Or what you will term a good CTR.

Many thanks!!

Nice post, I have to agree with you on the whole, however one point I would like to pick up on is this: If the searcher wants a Sky comparison with NTL then why shouldn’t someone with exactly that on their site be able to provide it to the searcher without having to pay extortionate amounts to Google for the privilege.

Unfortunately I think Google are in some instances taking visitor value away from the user, I guess they are prepared to take the good sites down with the chaff simply to get the end result they are after.

Personally I think it is an insult that they consider charging $10 per click to do it, if that is their honest goal then they should just say we DO NOT allow brand name bidding! and that be the end of it, because what they have done smacks of greed, and they are really saying what we want when a user types in Sky is for that user to see only Sky and those people willing to pay us through the nose for the privilege.

I was told that in my example, “canned cat food” had been shifted from $0.75 to $10.00 due to the new quality scoring algs they have introduced. However, with an average position of 2.3, a CTR of 7.4% and a page that is dedicated to the subject I am perplexed as to what else they expect.

I have asked why they don’t think my ad relevant to the phrase, yet the big corps such as EBay, are able to advertise the following;

Bargain Canned cat food
Fantastic low prices here.
Feed your passion on eBay.co.uk!
http://www.ebay.co.uk

When you click on the link you are sent to the following page, which in my eyes, is of no use to the end user;
http://search.ebay.co.uk/canned-cat-food_W0QQfcclZ1QQfclZ4QQfnuZ1QQfsooZ1QQfsopZ1

I also very much doubt EBay are being told to stump up $10.00 per click. Will wait with baited breath as to Googles answer on this :o(

“They investigated your account thoroughly and have assured me that your website, [URL here], has not been affected by landing page quality. As you may be aware, your Quality Score is the most important factor in determining your keyword performance. It is determined by your keyword’s click-through rate (CTR) on Google, relevance of ad text, historical keyword performance, landing page quality and other relevancy factors. Your keyword list is made up of extremely specific terms [my emphasis]. This may be affecting your Quality Score.”

So as well as landing page factors, Google are apparently factoring in other metadata from AdWords accounts when they set these prohibitive minimum bids.

Several users over at WebmasterWorld have been told by Google reps to concentrate on broader terms with large negative keyword lists, instead of chasing ‘the long tail’ with exact match keywords.

In a later email, I was told:

“Finally, when I reviewed your campaign for the site [URL here], I noticed that you recently increased your Daily Budget and max CPC. As a result, all your keywords are currently active.”

Interesting to see that budget makes a difference, given the discussion on Google price gouging over at Threadwatch.

Fsck Google.