Google respond: Landing page answers part 1

[3wdl]

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Via PPCLab

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/11/...e-quality.html

Answering your landing page quality questions (part 1)
On November 6, we let you know that we would soon be making changes to the way that AdWords evaluates landing page quality. These changes are now live and we'd like to follow up with a two part series to answer some of the questions that we have received.

Why did you make this change right before the holiday season?
As more and more holiday shoppers turn online to find gifts, we want to do everything we can to serve the most relevant and highest quality ads to our users. By making improvements to landing page quality, we're not only able to help users (who are your potential customers) find what they want, but also help you maximize your leads because your ads will no longer have to compete with ads that are providing a poor user experience.

To give a bit more background, we had an internal debate about when to release these changes. We ultimately decided that since our focus is providing the most relevant advertising, it was best to launch these long-planned improvements as soon as we were ready to go, technically speaking.

Can a page that has a high CTR or conversion rate be considered a poor quality landing page?
In short, yes. Though the Quality Score incorporates the CTR of your keyword, when our system is specifically evaluating your landing page quality, it does not consider the CTR of your keywords or any conversion tracking or Google Analytics data in the account. Instead, it's focused on the actual content and relevance of your landing page to a user who clicks on your ad and ends up on your site. It is well worth noting that not all ads with a high CTR provide a good experience for users. For example, an ad may promote a new home for sale in San Francisco for the query 'San Francisco homes', but after clicking on the ad, the user is taken to a page that shows houses in Seattle. This is not a particularly good experience for the user -- but the ad itself could still be highly relevant to the keyword, and thus is likely to have a high CTR.

Will using Website Optimizer improve my landing page quality?
Using Website Optimizer to experiment with your landing page does not have any impact on your Quality Score or your landing page quality. Website Optimizer evaluates your conversion rates to tell you which marketing messages are converting most often on your landing page, whereas the Quality Score doesn't incorporate any conversion information. Please remember that once you've made a change to your landing page based on tests run with Website Optimizer, the Quality Score may change as with any other changes to your landing page.

We hope this helps to clear up some of your questions about this recent change. If you have additional questions, please let us know and we'll answer as many as possible the next time we write about landing page quality.

and:

what Google is saying that one part of their algorithm is completely independent from the other and even though your ad has a huge CTR and a great conversion rate (see this threadwatch link), if you do not have enough content you will be penalized for having a low quality landing page. You must conform to what Google say is a good quality landing page or else pay more, innovation be damned!

I'm no PPC expert, so I won't comment much on this matter yet, but it does seem strange that the conversion rate of a site is not taken into account when trying to work out the LP quality.

[simon147]

What does google say is a good quality landing page?

What do I need?

[Sinbad]

I'm no PPC expert, so I won't comment much on this matter yet, but it does seem strange that the conversion rate of a site is not taken into account when trying to work out the LP quality.

Not really, as the reason is explained in the bit you quoted i.e. what the ad says might not be what the page is saying.

[Sinbad]

What does google say is a good quality landing page?

What do I need?

Lot's of money to put into Adwords!

[pricethat]

Google rep gets fired and goes to work for a local newspaper selling ad space:

Customer: "errr yeah i would like to place a great big **** off advert please"
Ex google ad rep: "certainly, if you could just spend a considerable amount of your time filling out this long form for me please"

Customer: "yes certainly"

Ex google rep: "ok then thats going to cost you $1000.00 exactly"

Customer: " Goody goody"

Ex google rep: "errrmm there is a problem, but i didnt tell you there was, normally i would of made you wait for days to try and work out if there is a problem"

Customer: "how jolly kind of you"

Ex google rep: "well not really, i want $25000.00 now please"

Customer: " you having a laarrrf or something?" (he is from london)

Ex google rep: "No, your ad sucks, $25000.00 makes it look better"

Customer: "well why does it suck, could you tell me?"

Ex google rep: "No"

Customer: "why not"

Ex google rep: "Cos"

Customer: "Cos what"

Ex google rep: "Cos you havent paid"

Customer: "ok so lets get this right, if i pay you will suddenly make my advert better quality?"

Ex google rep: "No, it will still suck, but we will be rich"

Customer: "you are a twat"

Ex google rep: "yes my mother often says that"




Seriously, have you ever met a company that will take your money and make you actually have to work to spend money with them? And make up a load of rules that you have to follow but not really tell you what they are just to be the customer? They can sod off.

Would you book a hotel if they told you that you might have it, might not, depends, whether they like your account or not but wont tell you. Or maybe when the manager bot has had a good look at the ladies landing pages? Me thinx not.....

[Mogga]

If you don't like it you could vote with your wallet.

Do you think you could organise a global one day boycott of google?

[pricethat]

If you don't like it you could vote with your wallet.

Do you think you could organise a global one day boycott of google?

Too many people around the world live hand to mouth mogga, would never work. Also even if you did manage to get a huge response all that would happen is the people that cant afford higher ranks in adwords would just have a field day for one day.

The very best thing we can do is find the good points in yahoo and msn, take a special interest in noticing them and make sure our readers know about them, Half the reason why google is so big is just apathy, most people are not even looking at what msn or yahoo have made because they just go straight to google each day.

Regards

[monk-i]

I would love for an I hate google landing page to be made to replace all landing pages for one day with an explanation why we hate google. Just stick it up online for one day everyone would be funny as The publicity would damage G.

[Sinbad]

Seriously, have you ever met a company that will take your money and make you actually have to work to spend money with them? And make up a load of rules that you have to follow but not really tell you what they are just to be the customer? They can sod off.

Would you book a hotel if they told you that you might have it, might not, depends, whether they like your account or not but wont tell you. Or maybe when the manager bot has had a good look at the ladies landing pages? Me thinx not.....

It's all about supply and demand mate. As long as they have people queuing at the door, they can do what they like.

[angelabx]

I've heard that a good number of advertisers who've had all their ads turned off have just deleted their credit card details leaving anything up to £1000 outstanding on their accounts.

I'm not sure what Google could do about it?

Small change I guess but a gesture.

I'm keeping that tactic in reserve for when they decide to clobber us!

[Hero]

ok, I have to ask, I've been meaning to for ages now....
All those of you with the "I hate google" avatar, have you actually pulled your adwords, and will no longer optimise your sites for good google serps?

No offence meant to anyone, I just have been speaking with various people lately complaining about google, yet most of them have been negative about shifting their focus elsewhere, "because that's the engine people use".

But, surely, if you don't agree with a company's modus operanti, you don't work with that company, no?

Yea, ok, I know, I just like to be a bit of a romantic sometimes....

[KieronD]

But, surely, if you don't agree with a company's modus operanti, you don't work with that company, no?

If only it were that simple. The fact is that if I were to pull my Google ads I'd probably lose 90% of my revenue.

If there were any serious competitors to Google then of course I would pull my ads. But the fact is they have no serious competition whatsoever. Of course I use MSN and Yahoo! paid search too but they only deliver say 5% of the traffic that Google does.

So unfortunately as much as I feel strongly about Googles policies I'm stuck with them.

[John Jupp]

I have to agree. I don't come anywhere near close to what Kieron spends on advertising. Yet you have to be realistic and look at where the consumer goes to find search information.

Doesn't mean I like it but it would be folly to close avenues that generate a revenue stream just because the %^%^&$%£ take you for a ride over their minimum bid prices.

[Hero]

So unfortunately as much as I feel strongly about Googles policies I'm stuck with them.

no one's forcing you to use G, you know
Besides, if all those people like you -who have been up until now providing quality ads and creating that "good customer experience" Google is so keen on maintaining- were to pull their ads and the customer was left with the crap experience for a long enough time to start questioning what the hell happened to google, then they would seek alternatives, wouldn't they?
And, yes, there are all those opportunists who will say "thank you very much, Kieron, I'll have a piece of that" and take up your space, but, as with all parachutists, they will reach the ground sooner or later.

Not to mention that you will have a clear conscience and a happy state of mind, knowing that you maintained your work ethics and didn't yield to the capitalistic command and have fought against the monopoly of google (I'm having a communist fit on top of the romantic fit ).

It's like having a very bad boss, a crap job that you hate, you cannot make yourself get out of bed to go to work, you count down to 5pm from the very minute you step into the office in the morning, you are miserable, and yet you don't just hand in your freaking notice because you're afraid that you won't find another job! Yes, you will! You don't need to wait for the headhunter to come-a-knocking on your inbox one fine day, you go out there and find that better job...

Look, in all fairness, and this is just an opinion from someone who uses google and any other engine as a user only, as I have never been an affiliate nor do I intend to ever become one: google is where it is because it had always taken care of its end users, and they appreciate that. You know that going in google you will pretty much find what you're after, without being bombarded by all that shoddy advertising etc etc. It is now becoming more and more difficult to find what you are after, you do indeed end up clicking on irrelevant stuff and wasting a lot of your time, and google does need to address that, I'm sure you will agree. Now, I'm not arguing that it's absolutely ridiculous determining a landing page by the checkout url, and not taking under account the results the pages produce and all that, but I'm sure a lot of people agree that google has become a nuisance to use. So, yes, as a user I do need google to strip out the irrelevant stuff (eBay ads being on top of my list!).
But as a user, I also want you to keep providing me with the quality ads that you have been doing so far, so that I will eventually find what I'm looking for through the mess of irrelevancy.
Fight the system from within, you know?

Ok, I'll finish my trail of thought: As a user I do want you to keep using google as your advertising vehicle, simple as that. And I do think you are doing the right thing in continuing using it, but all this "I hate google" stuff I do think that they are not so close to reality. Yes, you absolutely must point out all the absurdness of their new decisions, yes, you must find ways to work round them, yes, you must continue using the engine, but please, let's not fool each other saying things we will never do ourselves.

On the other hand, if I see a reduction in my salary because of the impact this has had on affiliates, therefore on the merchants, therefore on the network, therefore on me (being the last wheel of the wagon), I might revise and pring "I hate google" xxl tshirts

[Paul Wright]

Can a page that has a high CTR or conversion rate be considered a poor quality landing page?

In short, yes.

I'm sorry but when did G ever get hold of conversion rate for those who don't use G analytics or the standard adwords confirmation tag? Are they in cahoots with mystic meg?