Maybe if we can add on to see about those that have actually managed to fix their quality score? I haven't heard of one being able to do so yet.

We have ours on manual review at the moment, or at least in the queue. It's been a long wait (even though it has only been 4 hours so far), it looks as though we'll have a decision/update in the next 24 hours.

Our rep has been helpful with this, I honestly believe there will be some kind of manual review for us. Our rep genuinely seems to be on our side (and seems to understand the issue much more than others have been reporting) and I think that may have some influence on the decision.

Fingers crossed.

Not yet. We have an account rep, but after millions spent with Google & a very good relationship with our rep, we got: Tough Luck.

inbound, please keep us posted.

Not yet. We have an account rep, but after millions spent with Google & a very good relationship with our rep, we got: Tough Luck.

That's insane. It's pretty much what I expect when I call today. I wish I had a rep, but from the sounds of it, it's hit or miss whether or not they can help.

The answer was no...

...until we write 30,000 pages of unique content!

inbound, is it safe to assume you have 30,000 keywords. If so, I guess the keyword count to page ratio of the site might have something to do with it

Wow...I wish you were joking about that ( actually I wish THEY were joking about thatis more accurate), but unfortunately it's about what I expect from G these days.

Exactly why I haven't bothered to request a review on the account that was hit. I already know what the answer would be based on my business model ( and NO it's not an MFA in any way).

The answer was no...

...until we write 30,000 pages of unique content!

I don't understand. Are you forced to make a new page per keyword?

No luck yet - still debating with our rep, but we basically got the standard 'please make sure your site matches our quality guidelines' and the link their guidelines page.

When we got hit with the insane min. bid hike in early April, we followed the advice of our rep and tuned our landing pages. The changes had no impact. It was a waste of energy, and the affected Adwords account remains basically shut down today (after billing many, many thousands$/mo. for two years).

IMO, the algo is measuring discepancies between PPC and estimated value of keywords based on conversion/revenue data from Google analytics. The people getting high ROI clicks are dragging down G's earning potential for the keyword -- the algo cuts the low bidders loose and sets PPC at a point where it just barely provides a positive profit for high bidders. The number of bidders decreases, but the jump in PPC more than offsets the drop in revenue for the keyword.

This is all just a guess of course, but in my opinion, if you've been focusing on high ROI clicks, you're vulnerable. Quality score is just a smokescreen.

That makes sense. I had a feeling this was all something to do with analytics data.

Quality of a landing page cannot be assessed by a bot, only by the users so when Google points to quality it is necessarily a lie.

And, I have been getting some very cheap clicks for what without me would be some very expensive terms. No wonder my clients are in tears on the phone.

This is a direct attack on the profit margins of their clients, by Google, using their clients' own data. The better you are at Adwords, the more determined the Googleplex is that in future "YOU WILL SERVICE US".

Yup. Google turned into the Borg finally, and all your profits will be assimilated.

[edited by: Alex_Miles at 6:45 pm (utc) on July 13, 2006]

pdivi, you hit the nail on the head which makes Google advertising tenuous at best to even bother writing new ads for. If you are penalized for making a profit what good is Google anymore.

Getting hard to make a 50% ROI anymore much less higher. It's all way to labor intensive for the return anymore to bother tweaking anything. "Build 30,000 new pages the rep told someone in another post" You got to be kidding. These reps are a bunch of corporate crap.

what a phony balogna Google is turning out to be. All this Mr. Morals, we care about the surfer experience BS.

They must think were all a bunch of saps!

Is there a class action lawsuit in google's future? I cannot believe how google led everyone on for years and was very vague and not clear about the "quality score". Their guidelines are one page and there was no major warning beforehand, so we could make changes to avoid doomsday. Google is ending up being EVIL, the one thing they strove not to. What about all the people who depend on their web business to pay their bills at home, who are at the mercy of this crazy quality score BS. I hate it because it is not clear what they are doing and you don't have any predictability. As an advertiser, I demand predictability or I would not have risked making a web business and invested thousands of man hours.

Just think of the thousands of man hours that people have wasted on their keywords, wiped out in a day by Google crazy people and their fantasy of "quality score". The quality issue should be scrapped. Google should make explicity clear guidelines on what it would LIKE to see in landing pages. Let the market forces decide who stays and who goes.
Basing prices purely on CTR is the only way to go.

I bet the other search engines will abide by this and make a ton of money and start to take over google's market share. With more money pouring into msn and others, they have more money to invest in advertising their search engines.

Google I believe made a HUGE mistake by destroying such a huge number of businesses and the bad PR that is sure to come. And of course I would not discount a class action lawsuit for damages.

Well said. There is no doubt what they did here was misleading and has financially hurt many small guys to the point of bankruptcy. Frankly, this hurt me big time. I'm gonna do what I can to pay my bills but as a sole prop who put his chips and yes thousands of man hours the last 2-3 years into trusting Google and building a business with them, I feel I was cheated by unfair business practices.

I have had this uneasy feeling about them the last few months. Lots of things didn't seem right. We all have been worrying about competitors. Who knew our real worry was GOOGLE itself.

I think I found a temporary fix. But I'm not sure what part of what I did put the prices back where they should be.

I would appreciate a little help finding out.

Could someone recently priced out business, who is up for an experiment, PM me please?

UPDATE

You do need to change your url. Then you need to do other stuff. Luckily I had a url on standby. But once you change your url, if you can't work out how to get your prices back to where they should be PM me.

Note. This fix will last just long enough for Google to screw up again, but it should give people some breathing room while they switch to MSN/Overture/Ask.

[edited by: Alex_Miles at 9:32 pm (utc) on July 13, 2006]

Yea I tried that to. The keywords were active for about an hour. Goodluck.

:(

Thanks. I'll keep playing with it then.

pdivi: IMO, the algo is measuring discepancies between PPC and estimated value of keywords based on conversion/revenue data from Google analytics.

Thank you pdivi, I've been saying exactly that to a wall of G$$gle Yay-sayers at WebmasterWorld here since April.

Hi all,
I asked my "dedicated account manager" about the fact that there are sites still out there in Google land that are not "quality" sites, and do not have quality landing pages and yet their ad are still showing on Google, the following is her response:

<removed>

they said basically shut up, bend over and take it like everyone else. Google wants to rule the world!

[edited by: jatar_k at 11:25 pm (utc) on July 13, 2006]
[edit reason]
[1][edit reason] no email quotes thanks [/edit] [/edit][/1]

...as our Site Quality initiatives continue to be refined and applied to more sites...

Im particularly interested in the part that says "and applied to MORE sites", ie currently its been applied to you and not your competitors. How are they doing that exactly?

ebuilder said,

Yea I tried that to. The keywords were active for about an hour. Goodluck.

Still active. But like I said, I did other stuff too. Quite a lot of it.

If its still working this time tomorrow I'll know I have have enough time to make a tidy exit from Adwords for myself and my clients. If its still working in a week I'll be delighted. The last thing I need is a mad panic for the door by everyone at once.

If I have a week to play with I think I can render Adwords redundant in an orderly fashion, even for those clients who have not been hit yet. It doesn't take a genius to see its coming.

Ok, after a long debate with our ad rep, we were basically told the same thing - suck it up, and deal with it. In our case our landing pages already fit all of the criteria that are provided in Google's guidelines, yet they simply keep referring us back to them, and saying they cannot help further. I am guessing the rep himself does not understand the algorithm changes.

The frustrating thing is seeing dozens of MFA sites with nothing but a few keywords followed by AS and affiliate ads still running, while our landing pages (which by ANY measurable standard offer a much higher quality user experience) are all disabled. I would agree the quality score is simply a smokescreen.

How can I contact/call to my rep at google.
Currently all my communication is being done by email interface provided on goolgl ehelp page.

It seems from previous posts that people call or contact personally to google rep.

The frustrating thing is seeing dozens of MFA sites with nothing but a few keywords followed by AS and affiliate ads still running...

But will they continue running? Wouldn't you say their presence is a bug, not a feature?

My ads are still up and running at the normal price after the changes I made. 16 hours so far.

This is temporary I'm sure. Someone said this will probably last till the bot comes round. Anyone know how long it takes the bot to come round, and at what interval it revisits?

Alex, can you share what you did? If you can't share publicly, i'd be thrilled to hear it privately. Thanks