To be sure, numerous Adwords Advertisers have been impacted by the new quality score issue, and still are as of this writing.  I personally know of at least 5 serious Adword advertisers who spend a high 5-figure amount per month who have been adversely affected by these changes - they are still scrambling to “fix” their landing pages.

This whole episode has spun off some interesting side effects:

- Many are recrafting their sites to better “comply” with Google’s Quality score.  From what I’ve seen, there are varying levels of success in this approach. 

- Many are recrafting AND moving their sites to new domains.  This definitely had short-term success in many instances, but it doesn’t answer the fundamental question: “How long before Google’s Adwords Spider visits your site and scores it for quality again?”

- A small burgeoning business of crafty entrepreneurs selling “Beat Google Adwords Quality Score”-type E-books have sprung up.  In addition, there have also been a new flock of Adwords pseudo-gurus springing up with reports, guides and forums……promising to “unlock” the secrets of the mystical “quality score” elixir.

- MSN Adcenter and Yahoo PPC have been reaping the benefits as PPC advertisers FLOCK over to them en masse.  This is one effect that could well bite Google in the nether regions long term……….people who once had no intention of straying from “Mother Google” are now risking life and limb to taste the benefits of alternative PPC.  I’ve personally been finding that while MSN delivers significantly less traffic, the QUALITY of their clicks is much higher.

- Some are quitting PPC altogether.  Their dreams of “Google riches” dashed, some are flocking to the next big thing or next big tool.  Adios, amigos…………and don’t let the door whack you in the ass on the way out.  Less competition is just fine by me.

Veterans in the PPC game are far too familiar with the fact that algorithm or major “rule” shifts occur at least twice a year at Google. 

The best and strongest players in PPC plan for this, and adjust accordingly.

And the best and strongest players in the Marketing game have long since diversified accordingly, so factors like a policy or algorithm shift in PPC don’t decimate their holdings.

Which camp are you in?

Ciao for now,

Mr. P

Here’s a quote from the Inside Adwords blog at Google:

“From time-to-time, we improve our algorithms for evaluating landing page quality (often based on feedback from our end-users), and next week we’re launching another such improvement. Thus, over the coming days a small number of advertisers who are providing a low quality user experience on their landing pages will see increases in their minimum bids. It is important to note, however, that the vast majority of advertisers will not be affected at all by this change, as they link to quality landing pages.”

Thus far, the changes have meant unmitigated disaster for many Adwords users. 

Instead of a “small number of advertisers” seeing minimum bid increases, the reports of horrific bid increases are being WIDELY reported.  In many cases, where minimum bids were previously 15- to 30-cents, Google is now asking for minimum bids of $1.00 to $10.  Reports of $5 and $10 minimum bids are now increasingly common.

Instead of eliminating “junk” landing pages, Google appears to have effectively priced out volumes of regular high-quality landing pages and even regular merchant pages.

Early media reports have Google trying to end the practice of “Adwords Arbitrage” - the act of using Adwords to drive traffic to landing pages populated with Adsense Ads, in order to profit off the price and revenue differential in certain niches.  At best, these media reports are incorrect and short-sighted.  All one has to do is spend time at major sites like Webmaster World or Digitalpoint Forums to get a clearer idea of how wide a crater Google has created.

So have the “junk” sites been eliminated from Adwords Ads?  All one need do is type in the term “mortgage calculator” in Google and see the results that come up.  As of this writing, some of the top Adwords results are for MFA (Made for Adsense) Sites, or paid search engine listings - the very type of sites that Google was trying to eliminate.

After making calls to Google Customer Service, it also became clear that Google had given little to no warning to their reps about this week’s upcoming changes - answers range from complete bewilderment, to the typical “canned” answers read or copied from old scripts.

So, what is an Adwords Advertiser to do?  First off, don’t panic.  Second, don’t make any radical changes to your campaigns over the next several days at least.  In the past, Google has rolled out major Adwords Changes, only to roll them back or retune them significantly.  Also, don’t bother calling Google Customer Service over the next couple of days at least - it is clear that there is a major communication disconnect going on internally at Google - calling them now will most likely get you nowhere, and will likely only increase your blood pressure.

Take the next few days and monitor what is going on at the major forums.  Will your campaigns take a hit?  Most probably.  But making rash changes now could further damage your long term income.

Spend some time investigating the alternative PPC networks, Yahoo/Overture and MSN Adcenter.

Lastly, take this time to take stock of your business.  If PPC is your sole means of revenue, you need a reality check.  Putting all of your eggs in one PPC basket is NOT SMART.  Diversify your income sources outside of PPC, so that if one area of your business takes a hit, it does not bring the roof collapsing down around you.

You are diversified, aren’t you???

Mr. P