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Top Google Adwords Quality Score MisconceptionsPosted by Amber on August 7, 2008 in Google AdWords Quality Score |
As day 4 of our Google Adwords Quality Score series, I’ll be discussing the top misconceptions advertisers have about the quality score and how if effects your PPC account.
- The first misconception of the Google AdWords Quality Score is that using different match types improves your Quality Score. The fact is match types have no effect on your quality score. According to Google, two types of quality scores are used. One is used to calculate your minimum cost-per-click bids and the other is used to calculate your ad position. Apparently, neither is impacted by match type. Furthermore, if you do have multiple match types for the same keyword in your ad group, all three match types should have the exact same quality score. The quality score for determining your ad position depends on the relevance of your keywords and a user’s search query. Your quality score is often higher if the search query and your keyword is an exact match. But this does not say that by having exact match on all your keywords will get you a higher quality score for ad position. I think the point here is if you’re obsessing over match types in your ad groups and how they may or may not affect your quality score, obsess no more. Move on and worry about a different aspect of the quality score!
- Misconception #2: You can buy a good quality score. Wrong! There are so many factors involved in how Google determines your quality score, and simply bidding higher isn’t one of them. At a high level the Google AdWords Quality Score is based on the relevance of your keywords, ads, landing pages to the users search term. The more relevant you are, the better your quality score. Don’t burn yourself by trying to bid higher on keywords just to see if it works. You’ll end up blowing your budget on a huge misconception!
- Misconception #3: Quality score is affected if your ads are not running. This is also false. If you turn off or pause your account, then turn it back on at a later date, assuming you haven’t switched any of your keywords or ads around during that time, you’re quality score will not be affected. The quality score is typically affected when you separate your better performing keywords from their ad texts. So just by turning off your account won’t screw up anything with your overall quality score once you turn your account back on.
Well, there you have it, three things that you no longer have to worry about or spend any more time on when it comes to the Google AdWords quality score. If you have any other misconceptions I can add to the list I’d be glad to hear ‘em!
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August 7th, 2008 at 8:48 am
[...] Top Google Adwords Quality Score Misconceptions [...]
August 7th, 2008 at 6:36 pm
I’m pretty sure that Google only determines Quality Score on Exact Matches only:
http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/017716.html
Loving this series on Quality Score.
August 8th, 2008 at 7:29 am
Great post Amber! You always write good stuff.
I have to admit that I had the match type misconception as well, and I’ve been doing PPC a long time. Kind of feel silly that I did not look into that in more detail earlier.
Of course, we will continue to use all 3 match types so that we can a) manage conversion rates (we do see differences there), and b) to feed the intelligence we gather into SEO efforts.
Thanks for putting this out there.
August 19th, 2008 at 4:27 am
[...] PPCHero, the Search Blogger of the Day. Today I’d like to highlight a post called Top Google Adwords Quality Score Misconceptions. Remember the old days when all you had to do was buy your way to the top of Adwords? Right, and [...]