Adwords Keyword Quality Score...instant shit.

efeezy

efeezy

Well-known member
Oct 5, 2007
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DISCLAIMER: I'm going to be showing one of my own landing pages for a campaign I've been working on, plus some of the keywords I'm bidding on. This is necessary for my post because I need some help to figure out why all of my keywords always receive a low QS. I'm not trying to mess up anyone else's campaigns or LP's with this, so please bear with me.

For some reason, I cannot find a way to create campaigns that don't instantly get hit with a low keyword QS. I've even opened a new account recently to be sure that it wasn't a problem with my old one.. So check this out. ! BE ADVISED, I'M GOING TO OUT ONE OF MY OWN LANDING PAGES NOW ! so maybe I can figure out what the hell I'm missing.

I'm promoting Gaming CPA offer for some retro video games. This one in particular is for Frogger. Here's one of my landing pages

Play the Classic Arcade Hit Frogger FREE

For this landing page one of my ad groups was targeting the keywords you see below.

qs.png


Say what you will about the design and layout of my landing page, but I'm having a difficult time figuring out how Google determines that my landing page is not targeted towards "Free Frogger Game" and variations on that phrase. Seems to me my LP is EXACTLY about free Frogger Games. Yet, as you can see, they QS is 1 or 2 for every phrase or keyword.

I've tried adding text, H1, H2, H3, Title, Description etc., each time tweaking it more for those keywords and nothing changes the QS. I created several other ad groups on variations of "Frogger Games" keywords, with landing pages specifically for those keywords as well. Same thing. Low QS..Ads never show.

Is this happening to anyone else? What am I doing wrong? The sponsor of those games is running LPs that are identical and they show up for the same keywords. I'll admit that I'm no PPC guru, but I think I've got a handle on how to build campaigns and massage them into profitability, but it's difficult when you can get any ads to show. Thanks for any insight.
 


becareful if you put up a few pages that get low QS next thing you are going to get is a letter saying you have been banned from Google. They really hate Affiliates These days
 
I already got that letter this week on my previous account. Funny thing about it though, I hadnt run a campaign for 2 months..then out of left field they decide I"m not giving them quality campaigns. Seems like bullshit to me.
 
Your LP is what google calls a "bridge page" and google doesn't like it. You will never get good QS with a page like that. Whitelabels are the way of the future for adwords IMO

Focus on other traffic sources.
 
silentbob said:
Your LP is what google calls a "bridge page" and google doesn't like it. You will never get good QS with a page like that. Whitelabels are the way of the future for adwords IMO

Focus on other traffic sources.
Click to expand...

Explain whitelabels please. (excuse the ignorance)
 
several problems

1) no terms/conditions link
2) no sitemap link
3) no about/contact us link
4) no privacy policy
5) no links to articles or ideally a blog on blog.domain.com with a few thrown in stupid articles about old video games, the history of frogger/konomai, etc.
6) no cloaked aff link (domain/playfroggernow.php w/ a header redirect through aff link

my view at least
 
efeezy said:
Explain whitelabels please. (excuse the ignorance)
Click to expand...

It's basically the same as "normal" affiliate marketing except that you can do your own branding and the sale/lead is captured on your site and then handed over the the "real" merchant/lead acquirerer. So in google's eyes you are providing the service and you are not an affiliate.

Example: findingsingles.net is a whitelabel of singlesnet

Another thing with your landing page: It looks weird on smaller resolutions. There is a horizontal scrollbar. The following line is causing it:
Code: 
<table border="0" width="[B]1901[/B]" id="table1" height="624" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
 
Sonny Forelli said:
several problems

1) no terms/conditions link
2) no sitemap link
3) no about/contact us link
4) no privacy policy
5) no links to articles or ideally a blog on blog.domain.com with a few thrown in stupid articles about old video games, the history of frogger/konomai, etc.
6) no cloaked aff link (domain/playfroggernow.php w/ a header redirect through aff link

my view at least
Click to expand...

silentbob said:
It's basically the same as "normal" affiliate marketing except that you can do your own branding and the sale/lead is captured on your site and then handed over the the "real" merchant/lead acquirerer. So in google's eyes you are providing the service and you are not an affiliate.

Example: findingsingles.net is a whitelabel of singlesnet

Another thing with your landing page: It looks weird on smaller resolutions. There is a horizontal scrollbar. The following line is causing it:
Code: 
<table border="0" width="[B]1901[/B]" id="table1" height="624" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0">
Click to expand...


Thanks to both of you guys...I appreciate it.
 
Sonny Forelli said:
1) no terms/conditions link
2) no sitemap link
3) no about/contact us link
4) no privacy policy
5) no links to articles or ideally a blog on blog.domain.com with a few thrown in stupid articles about old video games, the history of frogger/konomai, etc.
6) no cloaked aff link (domain/playfroggernow.php w/ a header redirect through aff link
Click to expand...

^^ this
+
it's a plain bridge page which big G hates anyway
+
try avoiding the word free within the html text (on images is ok). but then it's even part of your keyword, so I dunno.
 
Also, no content on homepage & you are promoting a "free" offer, google hates CPA/free offers, period.
 
I'm getting a malware warning in google chrome, from the host yahoo-analytics.com Might be part of the issue.
 
Sonny Forelli said:
several problems

1) no terms/conditions link
2) no sitemap link
3) no about/contact us link
4) no privacy policy
5) no links to articles or ideally a blog on blog.domain.com with a few thrown in stupid articles about old video games, the history of frogger/konomai, etc.
6) no cloaked aff link (domain/playfroggernow.php w/ a header redirect through aff link

my view at least
Click to expand...

The main problem (as suggested) is that you have a bridge page. None of that other stuff matters when you take that into consideration. Also, Google DOES NOT hate affiliates. That is such a misconception. Google sucks dick - no doubt - but they don't hate affiliates - not all of them at least.

The point is to be a "value added affiliate". For example, if you were to get rid of the link to the merchant, would your page still have value in the eyes of the visitor? If your affiliate site can pass that test with Google, have good navigability, original content (and the extra stuff mentioned above) it will be fine... even if it is an affiliate site.
 
Problem is G keeps moving the goal post -> farther away.

I've had quickie landers with no tos / privacy live a long and prosperous life, while sites that I have really worked to fit their guidelines have gotten insta-slapped.

But now it's next to impossible to get away with a quickie. Although I have one really annoying competitor (chinese) that manages to get 2-3 weeks of garbage on search before he gets slapped, and he always comes back within 2 days with the same garbage. Don't know how he does it.


On the upside, competition is dropping like flies, and for those of us with accounts that are still alive, the clicks are getting cheap.


ux6rtofqef3t4z6ay13h.jpg


That's from yesterday ( it made me do a spit-take when I logged in ;) )

And btw, some large spend non-aff guys have been taking a beating too: New rule? Quality Violations => Adwords ban
 
today i actually just deleted all my affiliate campaigns off google.
I dont want to get banned, because i have some real products that im going to promote in a couple weeks. So i guess they win.

Also i kind of disagree with the "adding value" thing, because its in the subjective hands of the manual reviewer that sees your site. Maybe one will think it adds value, maybe another one won't. So eventually your probably gonna go down.
 
Yeah, the value add / user experience thing is complete and utter bullshit.

It's "Flavor of the Quarter" ...


Conspiracy theorists are beginning to hover around 1 theory:

G are trying to push advertisers into content driven advertising; this to ease to move over to paid serps.


choke on that
 
gdubs12345 said:
Also i kind of disagree with the "adding value" thing, because its in the subjective hands of the manual reviewer that sees your site. Maybe one will think it adds value, maybe another one won't. So eventually your probably gonna go down.
Click to expand...

That's a good point (hence the reason I prefaced my statement with "Google sucks dick" because they do... big time!). Yes, it is possible you go down in the future BUT... it's the safest bet if you want to play the Google game.

HConvert... that's an interesting theory and it does make sense, however, I wouldn't entirely discount the whole user experience bit (regardless of the fact that it's user experience through Google's eyes and not a true market indication).
 
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