For those who don’t pay attention to the AdWords Blog – they’ve updated it recently regarding changes in AdWords, including Quality Score:

Improvements to Ads Quality

We’re always working on improvements that will help us show the most relevant ads to our searchers, and we’re excited to tell you that we’ll soon introduce two changes designed to enhance how we calculate Quality Score and rank ads. The first change helps better evaluate the precise quality of your ad – regardless of its position on the page. The second change improves how we promote ads to positions above the search results. Let’s take a look at both of these changes in more detail.

More precise Quality Score calculation
Clickthrough rate (CTR) is the most significant component of Quality Score because it directly indicates which ads are most relevant to our searchers. As you probably have observed, ads in high positions typically earn better CTR than those in low positions, because ads in high positions are more visible to searchers. To calculate the most accurate Quality Scores, it’s important that the influence of ad position on CTR be taken into account and removed from the Quality Score.

In the coming days, we’ll update the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position. This will result in more accurate Quality Scores, ensure that ads compete fairly for position based on their quality and bid, and enable Google to show the most relevant ads to searchers by rewarding high-quality advertisers with better ad positions.

Higher quality ads above the search results
We’re also improving the way we determine which ads show in the yellow region above the search results. These positions are particularly valuable to advertisers because they are prominently positioned on the page. Given their prominence, it’s especially important that these ads be high quality; we therefore place extra emphasis on quality when determining which ads to show in this location.

To appear above the search results, ads must meet a certain quality threshold. In the past, if the ad with the highest Ad Rank did not meet the quality threshold, we may not have shown any ads above the search results. With this update, we’ll allow an ad that meets the quality threshold to appear above the search results even if it has to jump over other ads to do so. For instance, suppose the ad in position 1 on the right side of the page doesn’t have a high enough Quality Score to appear above the search results, but the ad in position 2 does. It’s now possible for the number 2 ad to jump over the number 1 ad and appear above the search results. This change ensures that quality plays an even more important role in determining the ads that show in those prominent positions.

Keep in mind that these enhancements may cause changes to your ad position, spend, and performance. We’re launching these updates soon so that you’ll have enough time to review your accounts and prepare for your holiday season advertising. While we don’t believe that any immediate changes are needed on your part, we encourage you, as always, to watch your key metrics and to make adjustments as appropriate.

We’ll post again once these changes are live.

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

I just read an email about Google’s new Quality Score updated that will take effect in the next few days.

Here’s what the email states, in case you are not subscribed to the AdWords Blog:

Last month, we posted about upcoming Quality Score improvements — and today, we’re following up to notify you that these changes will take effect in all advertisers’ accounts over the next few days. In addition, we’d like to answer a number of the more common questions we’ve recently heard from our advertisers.

To briefly summarize our earlier post, we have incorporated three main improvements to Quality Score:

• Quality Score is now more accurate — because it is calculated at the time of each search query

• Keywords are no longer marked ‘inactive for search‘ — all keywords are active because they are evaluated for every relevant query

• ‘First page bid estimates’ replace ‘minimum bids’ in your account — providing a more actionable and useful metric to advertisers

Below are answers to the most common questions we’ve heard, in each of these three areas:

Quality Score

Many advertisers wanted to know specifically how this launch affects the way we calculate Quality Score.

We will still consider your account’s history, which consists of the clickthrough rate (CTR) of all the ads and keywords in your account. We will also consider your landing page quality. Although your overall Quality Score is evaluated at the time of each query, landing page quality is evaluated less frequently.

Inactive for Search Status

We received three main types of questions about Inactive for Search Status. You’ve asked why we were doing this, how this would affect your traffic levels, and how this would affect the number of ads shown.

Through all our Ads Quality changes, our goal is to improve the search experience by showing only the highest quality, most relevant ads — and this change further enables us to meet this goal. By making all keywords active we will be able to evaluate keywords for any query where they may be relevant. Previously, keywords that were marked ‘inactive for search’ would never show ads on Google.com, even if they would have been a high quality match for certain queries.

Most keywords that are ‘inactive for search’ today will continue to accrue very few (or no) impressions due to their low Quality Score. For some currently inactive keywords, however, we may find that they perform very well for certain queries or in certain circumstances — in which case, these keywords may begin to receive impressions.

Stated another way, this change does not mean that that every ad will be shown or that every query will show ads.

First Page Bid Estimates

Finally, for first page bid estimates, many of you were interested in learning how these would compare to your old minimum bids.

For queries without many advertisers competing for placement, the first page bid estimate should be relatively close to your existing minimum bid. However, queries with a high level of advertiser competition may have significantly higher first page bid estimates, because you’ll likely need to bid above the old minimum bid to rank higher than your competition and show on the first page. Remember that you can bid less than your first page bid estimate and still show on subsequent pages — as long as your keyword is relevant to our users.

Advertisers familiar with the competitive landscape for their keywords may indeed notice that the first page bid estimates provided are in line with the CPCs that they had been bidding to appear on the first page prior to the release of these Quality Score improvements, although this is not a given.

We hope this information helps answer your questions. And, as you become acclimated to these changes, we hope you will keep in mind their underlying purpose. These improvements are part of a continuing effort to deliver relevant ads to our users, and also to provide you with more control over your bidding and more insight into the quality of your ads and keywords.

For further information, please see these frequently asked questions.

Posted by Trevor Claiborne, Inside AdWords crew

Posted by Clint Lenard | 4 Comments »

I just found this today and thought some of you might want to know about it, in case you haven’t heard about it yet. I’m usually quick to hear about this type of stuff but I’ve been “out of the loop” for about the past month.

Google Talk Gadget can be used on your website!

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

I found out about a cool new trick from Lifehacker.com that seems to work on Gmail with no problems but not so sure about any other Provider as I have no time to check on it but thought it was cool enough to post about.

When signing up for a product (giving away your email address) you should now never give out your email address without adding that site to the Address.

• Instead of just entering username@gmail.com as your email, enter it as username+samplesitecom@gmail.com instead
• When Gmail sees a “+” in an email address, it uses all the characters to the left of the plus sign to know who to send it to. In this example it would still send it to username@gmail.com.
• If you search Gmail for username+samplesitecom, you will see all massages that were sent to that email address.
• To see who is responsible for sending a specific message click the Show Details link and you will see the complete address.

That’s awesome!

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

Yep! Apparently they’ve joined forces to bring us:

www.sitemaps.org

Should be a good thing for us all!

Posted by Clint Lenard | 1 Comment »

I almost forgot about my Swicki until today. Luckily they sent me an email and reminded me about it… I’m still not really familiar with the program but it’s fun!

Check it out:

http://welcometoadsense-swicki.eurekster.com/ 

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

As the rumors were circulating all last week – the “Experts” were dismissing them one by one… but as of today: Google is the proud new owner of YouTube.com! A very nice price for the founders of Youtube, I might add.
A purchase of $1.65 Billion Dollars to be exact. While some rumors were indicating $1 Billion and others were indicating closer to $2 Billion, the price was “just right” in between, although a little north of half.

I’m not sure why some believe the deal is not worth it. I mean the traffic is some of the best online (top 5, right?) and what could be better than Owning another piece of Internet History? The price is definately alot of money but c’mon… it’s Google and they own AdSense! Now they can crush the competition, once again. As Microsoft continues to make attempts at picking up new Online Companies for their Ad Network – Google just offers more money…sounds like Microsoft is losing at their own game.
Bandwidth you say? Think again… Google can cope with that.

Things just continue to thrive for the Internet Giant.

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »

You better Believe it! According to Shoemoney – the deal is on the table for an estimated 2.1 BILLION Dollars. Yes, that’s correct. You can read what Shoemoney says here:

http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/10/06/google-to-aquire-you-tube-for-1-billion/

Wowsers. It makes complete sense though! If MS wants a shot at that advertising slot – Google wants it more, plain and simple.

Posted by Clint Lenard | 1 Comment »

Dear Friend,

If you’re anything like me you’ve probably spent alot of time on Message Boards (forums) having discussions and even arguments about Products, Services, Food, Cars, Reviews and all kinds of other things humans are interested in.
…I’ve been there, for years.

And very recently I’ve Discovered The Key Elements to ruining your Companies Reputation fast and efficiently while helping your competitors blow you out of the water, FAST!
In this Special Report you will see, exactly, how to Absolutely Destroy Your Own Business On A Message Board.

Give me a few minutes of your time and I will hand you the most important information you will need to help you help your competition online.

(more…)

Posted by Clint Lenard | 3 Comments »

Apparently there was supposed to be a Google PR Update and everybody but me has seen changes lol

Out of 5 sites I’ve checked there was no changes on my end or even checking the livepr sites.

Members of DigitalPoint seem to think so as well as the more popular member Shoemoney.

Oh well, maybe next time?

Posted by Clint Lenard | No Comments »