Google AdWords Announcement

[monkeyboy]

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To help clear up any confusion; a URL is the protocol (http, https, etc), domain name and the path to the file not just the domain name. So http://www.prezzybox.com/product1.htm would be a different URL to http://www.prezzybox.com/product2.htm.

So a merchant could create a separate landing page for each affiliate and it looks as though it would not breach any new Google guidelines.

However as most merchants use server side code (PHP, ASP, Perl) to generate the product pages it may not be as simple as just creating multiple landing pages. Off the top of my head I can think of at least three solutions to this so its not insurmountable its more a question of practicality.

One thing that does worry me is that if affiliates are producing their own landing pages that are simple 'click here to view this product', will these be seen by Google as gateway pages and therefore have an adverse affect on our page rank?

[watcher]

Monkeyboy,

Although you are absolutely correct in your definition of URL I have a feeling Google are referring to the domain name only.

Even if they aren't, the Display URL is limited to 35 characters which doesn't give much scope for including landing pages at the end of the merchants domain name.

[aotagain]

I'm sure they are referring to the domain. Otherwise it wouldn't be possible for merchants to deep link on the destination URL if it had to be the same as the display URL. At least not without rearranging their entire websites.

They could make it clearer, although not exactly known for precise and clear wording.

[cowenpa]

Affiliates or advertisers using unique URLs in their ads will not be
affected by this change. Please remember that your Display URL must match
the URL of your landing page, and you may not simply frame another site.
Also, we don't allow ads that redirect to the parent company's site if the
domain name of the Destination URL differs from the Display URL.

So what about tracking? If I am using a remote tracking service then the domain name of the destination URL will not equal the domain of the display URL.

The other big problem I foresee is for testing. Who wants to goto all the trouble of creating detailed landing pages if they have no idea whether that product or service is actually going to return a decent ROI. The beauty of Google was that you could get a campaign setup in half an hour and then monitor it quickly and see whether it is going to be profitable - and then expand it - creating landing pages, expand to other networks...

Paul Cowen

[monkeyboy]

Originally posted by watcher
Monkeyboy,

Although you are absolutely correct in your definition of URL I have a feeling Google are referring to the domain name only.

Even if they aren't, the Display URL is limited to 35 characters which doesn't give much scope for including landing pages at the end of the merchants domain name.

I suppose what makes thing more confusing is whether Google are referring to the display URL or destination URL when they talk about ads competing under the same URL. It does seem clear that both display and destination URLs need to be in the same domain.

I'd guess that they are talking about the destination URL, otherwise you couldn't advertise different products on the same site. If it is the case that they are referring to the destination URL then a landing page could be created for different affiliates.

Google glossary describes the destination URL as:

This is the page users see when they click through to your site from your ad.

Which again suggests that URL points to a page file rather than a domain.

The problem is that we don't really know what is happening because Google haven't really made things very clear.

[jamie]

So what about tracking? If I am using a remote tracking service then the domain name of the destination URL will not equal the domain of the display URL.

Tracking urls can be used! The stipulation is that the display url is the same as the landing domainl.

i.e
get widgets
buy em from here
now or else.
www.widgets.com

tracking url can be whatever as long as the user lands on the domain www.widgets.com or destination url www.widgets.com/shop/page/something/widget.htm

To help clear up any confusion; a URL is the protocol (http, https, etc), domain name and the path to the file not just the domain name. So http://www.prezzybox.com/product1.htm would be a different URL to http://www.prezzybox.com/product2.htm.

As far as i know this is incorrect google are saying you have to land on a different domain.

so basically only one link/ad per keyword can go to www.widgets.com or www.widgets.com/destination

I feel that it is a positive step forward for google as the ads where getting clustered with the same or similar ads. I have seen some keywords full of kelkoo ads..

It is obviously a real pain in the rs for us affs but i reckon we have had a bit of a easy time so far

We have been testing a range of solutions since we found out about the change in November and we can honestly say that it is possible to get the same if not better results from landing pages (how many times have you looked at a landing page and wished you could change it?)

[watcher]

Here is a little article about the new Adwords rules:

http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3455781

Significantly Salar Kamangar, director of product management at Google, indicates different pages within the same domain will not compete with each other - so Google DO mean the URL.

[harris1]

Personally I never linked directly to merchants sites. So for me this would seem to be a big bonus.

The biggest problem with affiliates linking directly to merchants sites was that they inevitably had a much higher click through ration and thus ranking when displaying the merchants url.

For those of us using our own domains it wasnt a level playing field. From this point of view I am pleased as we will now have a fair shot at competing for the top spots.

Interestingly it looks like they will only show a URL once per term even if different landing pages are used. But really you are only meant to have one ad per term anyway so its just another way of them picking up duplicate content ?

I think its a good move as for many searches you had one affiliate with multiple accounts monopolising the listings using the same sort of ad copy and the merchants URL. This was no good for Google as it limited their advertiser pool for that search and thus income.

It was no good for other affiates as they were effectively shut out of advertising on Google for that particular merchant / product.

And its no good for the merchant themselves as it usually effected their ability to effectively run their own PPC on Google as well as concentrating high volumes of business from a few affiliates.

It will be very interesting to see what happens. I am expecting to do some serious tweaking in the comming weeks but I cant do anything until they actually make the changes and we see whats going to happen.

Who reckons this will lead to a load of brand domains being registered ?

[AffManagement]

Who reckons this will lead to a load of brand domains being registered ?
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Cant see it myself, not unless they want to fight with the brand when it catches up with them. Would just be asking for trouble!

Neil

[stulee]

One thing which I've either not understood or not seen details of anywhere is how Google will work out which affiliate ad to display.

If it needs to continue calculating click through rates for the affiliate ads displaying for a given keyword then surely it would need to continue displaying all of them. So, I'm guessing that it will still continue to display all the affiliate ads, as it does now, but only one at a time, and rotate them according to the usual formula.

The only alternative would be to pick the 'best' one at the moment the rules come in and just stick with that one forever, which seems unlikely.

Anyone able to enlighten me?

[bazza99]

stulee,

I'd have thought that Google will calculate how to display ads that have no previous CTR in the same way that it does currently.

As I understand it, when you add a new ad to a campaign you are assigned a default CTR. When multiplied by your bid, this gives you an AdRank. That decides where you'll be displayed when a user searches on Google.

If your resultant AdRank isn't high enough then your ad won't be shown. I assume this will continue with the new rules - the difference being that if you are sending traffic direct to a merchant, then you'll need to get your AdRank higher than any other affiliates doing the same thing.

Realistically, the only way to achieve this will be to put in extremely high bids to try to increase your initial AdRank (unless G change their existing algorithm and set the initial default CTR for new ads to a higher rate).

That's my understanding anyway, although my usage of PPC advertising is fairly limited and we've always tended to send traffic to our own sites, rather than direct to merchants.

[Rich]

I was just reading some old adwords posts at WMW and came across a link to part of the adwords help that states: -

The minimum clickthrough rate (CTR) of 0.5% won't be changing. However, when you submit a keyword, we'll now predict its CTR based on data such as the performance of your account and other accounts with the same or similar keywords. This ensures that we make our prediction based on a careful review of all available keyword data.

From what I can tell that page was added early November last year. So it sounds like, if you have a account with generally good CTRs, it will be cheaper for you to beat an existing advertiser or to stay top on a new keyword.

[dalore]

From my experience, even tho google say URL, they mean domain. They treat www.widgets.com and www.widgets.com/destination as competing ad's for the same domain and will only display the ad with the higher CPC.

And it seems to only show the competing ad with the highest CPC, not the usual formula of clickthru and CPC. So even if you got a high clickthru ad, if someone puts up a competing ad with a higher CPC then yours, it will get shown even if its clickthru is far less then yours.

[stevenm]

This thread has been dead for a YEAR, why give me a heart attack by bringing it to the top? I thought I had missed *another* announcement from Google about Adwords changes.

Steven

[jrisby]

same here stephen!