AdWords and Quality Score

Changes to Google AdWords Quality Score mean better ad results for advertisers and more properly targeted ads to Google users. Part of an ongoing effort to improve AdWords, these new Quality Score changes will benefit everyone involved with AdWords.

Since July of 2005, AdWords had a minimum bid for keywords based on a Quality Score. Now the Quality Score is looking to get some improvements. This system has worked so well because it allows high quality ads to Google users based on what they want to search for and also gives advertisers more control over their keywords. The Quality Score has been improved before over the years to keep it working to the best of its ability.

These Quality Score improvements are based upon information from users and advertisers. Google is now releasing more improvements that will be made to keep the Quality Score operating at its best.

The key points of these improvements are:

Quality Score is more accurate because it is calculated at the time of the search query
Keywords are no longer marked “inactive for search”
“first page bid” is replacing “minimum bid” in the user account

These changes are being made to give a more accurate Quality Score for users all across the board. To help make the Quality score more accurate, they are replacing the static per-keyword scores with a new system that evaluates the ad’s quality each time it matches a query. AdWords will always use the most accurate and up to date performance information when it determines whether or not an ad should be displayed.

This will make your ads much more likely to show when they’re most relevant and not show when they’re not. This means each ad is getting the most potential of serving its job and being displayed to someone who would be interested. Advertisers will see better results from their ads per money spent on them.

This also means that Google users will see better ads that are more relevant to what they are searching for and they will be less likely to just ignore them.

The new per-query evaluation of the Quality Score will also help since keywords will not longer appear as “inactive for search”. All keywords will have the chance to show as ads on a Google web search and through the search network.

The third change is as a result of the second change and means that there will no longer be a showing of minimum bids in your account. The minimum bids will now be replaces with “first page bid”. This is an estimate of what bid it will take for your ad to place on the first page of a search result. This should give advertisers better guidance on how to place their advertising goals.

All of these AdWords and Quality Score improvements will help improve SEO advertisers as well as consumers using the Internet to get better and more relevant ads with their search results. The changes will at first only affect a small number of advertisers and could take some time before everyone starts showing results.