Google respond: Landing page answers part 1

[3wdl]

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]

Originally Posted by 3wdl 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]

Originally Posted by scott147 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]

Originally Posted by 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?

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]

Originally Posted by pricethat 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!