Not here unfortunately.

I've heard a lot of reports about this and I'm starting to wonder if there's some bug out there. I've had a lot of people mention to me about suddenly lots of qs 6-7 words became 10s; and nothing else was changed - just a huge increase in QS.

I've also not heard of anyone complaining that their QS suddenly went down; which is common to hear where there's a big QS update.

I'm starting to wonder if something else is going on with displayed QS.

Hi eWhisper,

I have heard the same on other forums about the 10/10 and also that some advertisers have seen their first page bid estimates jump antly with the sudden QS increase - however their actual CPC's did not change.

jump *significantly

Yes, my click costs have risen about 20% even with the higher "10" quality score. Makes you wonder.

Google Smart Pain in action. Google AdWords accounts sit in different tiers based on a number of factors Google dont tell us about (spend, conversion rate, potential growth.) It sounds like your account got upgraded to the next tier.

We've seen a few accounts where this has happened. Its a clever ploy by Google as if you think your QS is 10/10 then you dont optimise your keyword any further (thinking you have the best QS possible.) Where as you CPC stays the same and if you had a QS of 6/10 then you would spend more time on rewriting ad copy, updating landing page relevancy and load speed time.

By upgrading your QS and keeping your CPC the same, Google actually makes more money as advertisers dont spend time optimising their keywords.

Ignore QS - its a made up number like Page Rank (at best it is a guide.) Look at CPC's, that is all that counts.

Google Smart Pain in action. Google AdWords accounts sit in different tiers based on a number of factors Google dont tell us about (spend, conversion rate, potential growth.) It sounds like your account got upgraded to the next tier.

We've seen a few accounts where this has happened. Its a clever ploy by Google as if you think your QS is 10/10 then you dont optimise your keyword any further (thinking you have the best QS possible.) Where as you CPC stays the same and if you had a QS of 6/10 then you would spend more time on rewriting ad copy, updating landing page relevancy and load speed time.

By upgrading your QS and keeping your CPC the same, Google actually makes more money as advertisers dont spend time optimising their keywords.

Ignore QS - its a made up number like Page Rank (at best it is a guide.) Look at CPC's, that is all that counts.

What a lot of nonsense that is.

I saw a jump in quality score too. If it isn't a bug, then it is a flawed concept unless they are trying to mess with automated bid algorithms. The problem is that when QS jumps to 10, the first page bid estimates go down to next to nothing. If you are using first page bid estimates as a baseline with your automated bid algorithm, then your software will crank your bid down to prevent overpaying. But, because the true FPB estimate is still very high, you no longer get impressions.

On a possibly related note, my first page bid estimates are no longer moving in .05 cent intervals. My first page bid increments used to be .01 - .09, .1, .15, .2, .25 etc. Now they "appear" to be in one cent increments across the board. Has anyone else seen this?

Nope, I havent seen anything change.

I saw that today when I looked at keywords and phrases from last year's campaigns, ones that have been paused now for a year. There were a lot of 10/10 quality scores. Ironically, as is so often the case with Adwords, the ones with the best quality scores had the worst conversions, and the best conversions were usually words and phrases with scores of 3 or 4/10.