It’s natural to be afraid of something you don’t understand. Fear can create distrust, and this can lead to griping and blaming the “problem” and not focusing on the solution. I see this when I read Graywolf’s article “Google Adwords More Pricing BS.” He is blaming AdWords and claims they’re ripping us off for requesting a higher minimum bid due to poor quality score, rather than finding a solution to his quality score problem and educating people on how to achieve lower minimum bids. Granted, I don’t know everything about the AdWords system but at least I try to learn and teach others what I do know. Of course griping and blaming others can get you a lot of link bait.

In Graywolf’s post he complains about the Google AdWords quality score and minimum bid system. While Adwords tries to explain to him that a common misconception regarding minimum bids is that a lot of people believe if they have no competitors their minimum bids should be at $0.01. Graywolf argues that it’s an auction-based system in which AdWords clearly tells him that it has shifted from an auction based system to a quality score model.

So what we have is an auction based advertising system that has nothing to do with auction based pricing! Because you have no idea what goes into quality score you have no idea if Google is ripping you off or price jacking you. Says Graywolf.

AdWords is trying to provide accurate results with a quality score based system rather than having an auction based system where companies that have money to spend can rank #1 for a particular search query only because they can afford it even if they’re landing page is completely irrelevant and has nothing to do with the actual search query itself. Yes, I think I can say we all get frustrated when our minimum bids are higher than what we think they should be. And deciphering the quality score can be frustrating but lets face it, there are a ton of resources out there that can help one improve their quality score, and in turn, lower their minimum bids. If you’re personally having trouble understanding the quality score model, here’s some reading that outlines why Google likes the quality score and tips to boost your quality score.

Graywolf also complains about keywords having a high minimum bid when he sees no competitors that come up for his keywords. Of course there can be many factors that determine the ad rank of a particular keyword. For example:

If you look for your ad and see no competitors, this does not necessarily mean that there are no others advertising on that keyword. For example, many advertisers choose to show their ads only during particular times of the day, so you will not necessarily see them when your ad appears. Or, while you might be targeting the entire United States, competing advertisers may be regionally targeting and not including the area in which you are located — in which case you’ll not see their ads. (Google.)

My point is, instead of griping and complaining about things you don’t understand: educate yourself first. There are many resources to help you gain a better quality score. A favorite saying of mine is, ‘Don’t wish the job were easier, wish you were better’ holds true here. So unless you’re just going for good link bait, think before you speak, attempt to learn and teach others. The quality score is a very complex system. There are many factors that go into it. The better your quality score, the better your ad rank will be and the cheaper it will cost you. I’ve personally experienced minimum bids that have decreased once I got my ad text, landing page and account better organized and optimized. Read up on quality score, because it’s not going away anytime soon.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 8:00 am and is filed under Basic PPC Strategies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.