Google is changing its yardstick AdWords Quality Score, used to determine the relevance of its advertisers’ pay per click ads. The changes have been split into three main areas and most significantly, signalise the end of the ‘minimum bid’ facility. More About AdWords Quality Score Changes

Based on a number of changes made in recent months – including the quality of the landing page and landing page load time in the algorithm- the changes are slated to come into effect in the next few weeks.

Google explained on its AdWords Blog that rather than continuing to be a static function, the Quality Score will be a real time measurement of the advert’s relevance and calculated each time a search query calls up the text. This is intended to make the reading more accurate and provide the search engine with only the most relevant and specific adverts to display at the side of search results. From an advertiser perspective, it’s hoped that this will lead to clicks that have been better qualified given ads are likely to show only when they are most relevant.

Keywords currently marked ‘inactive for search’ will also disappear, with all keywords being active. Under the new format it is unlikely that these phrases will appear often as the combined bid and quality score will not meet the required threshold.

Finally, Google will outlaw the ‘minimum bid’ facility, replacing it with a first page bid metric. This will act as an estimate of the minimum cost per click necessary to appear on the first page of the search results.

Top Position’s founder Daniel Jupp said, “Google have made lots of changes to their AdWords functionality in their search to improve user experiences by presenting only the most relevant of adverts. They’ve recently topped customer satisfaction surveys so these new changes are of little surprise to us. We will welcome the new metrics as they will help us to deliver even better qualified clicks to our pay per click clients, giving more control over keyword spend and refine account performance.

pay per click
search engine optimisation