Google’s Quality Score Improvements – What Do They Mean?
By Anna Johnson on August 25th, 2008Last Thursday, Google announced improvements to its Quality Score, which it introduced in July 2005 to vary minimum bids for keywords based on relevance.
Google is making three key changes to Quality Score:
1. Quality Score will now be calculated at the time of each search query. On that basis, Google will evaluate an ad’s quality each time it matches a search query. Consequently, Quality Score will vary according to such factors as where an ad displays (Google, search partner, content site) and where the searcher is located (country, state).
2. Keywords will no longer be marked ‘inactive for search’. Rather than be deemed inactive for search due to low relevance and/or searches, all keywords will be able to have ads shown on Google and the content network (unless you’ve paused or deleted them).
3. “First page bid” will replace the “minimum bid”. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results in Google, based on the ‘exact match’ version of the keyword, the ad’s Quality Score, and current advertiser competition on that keyword.
So what do these changes mean?
Well, as far as a more dynamic Quality Score goes, it probably just confirms the need to keep keywords relevant. The good news is that, theoretically, YOUR ideas over what is relevant can be borne out by the behavior of your target market, rather than be deemed by Google. Provided, of course, that you get it right.
The lifting of the ‘inactive for search’ restraint is, I think, good news. Again, provided that you know more about your market than Google’s algorithm.
As for the replacement of the “minimum bid” with the “first page bid”… this sounds suspiciously like an excuse to make Google Adwords advertisers pay more. Hopefully not, but we won’t know until Google rolls out these “improvements” over the next few weeks.
Source: Trevor Claiborne, “Quality Score Improvements”, August 21, 2005
