The first priority of AdWords is to create the best quality SERP (Search Engine Results Page) to serve the searcher. AdWords controls 50% of the most valuable Internet real estate on the planet and our job is to pursue SERP perfection. We are not fools so we are very aware of the fact that obtaining perfection is impossible, but it is the pursuit that is important.
You might think something like “I am paying for AdWords and I want it to serve my needs first.” This is a nice thought, but a failed concept. The value you get is from the interaction with the searcher. You can only get there if you serve their informational need first. The value of traffic is created by the engagement of the searcher with the value statement of your business. We must serve the searcher before that value can be created.
We get calls from people all the time that are trying to control the market and the reality is that the market is a thousand times more powerful than the business. Control is an unlikely outcome in a mismatch like this. The strategy needs to be in service to the market, not in an attempt to control the market. You cannot win if you try it the other way around.
There are lots of system manipulations, some of them work once in a while, but none of them work long term. You can trick a person into clicking on an ad with deceptive copy, but it is unlikely you will hold the upper hand all the way to the finish line because they hold all the power. I will be the first to admit that there are businesses that work on a one-sale model, but our clients need the recurring business and the long term relationship to build a good business. For that reason they need to get the right traffic to their site and that means serving the searcher first.
To be in service to the searcher we need to make sure that the ads on the SERP are the highest quality match to the searcher’s query. The magic of AdWords is the keyword model of both positive and negative words to connect directly to the searcher’s need. Since 1994, when I started working in web marketing, I have yet to meet a person that did not know their keywords. It is a rare person however that knows their negatives. To serve the searcher the ad needs to appear when it serves their informational need but no other time. You might think that there is no cost to the extra impression of your ad, unfortunately that is not true. That impression goes into the quality score which is multiplied by your bid to calculate your rank so it really does cost you in the long run.
We like to think about the search process as the start of a conversation. The searcher enters a few words as a clue of their interests and we match that to the keywords related to the ad copy which is our response to their query. You say hello and I say Good Morning, it really is that simple. The really tough part here is when they click on your ad you need to continue that conversation on your landing page or the only thing that will happen is a charge to your credit card.
Quality Score is real money to an Adwords Advertiser. So it is no surprise that improving this is a common topic of conversation with our clients. We have studied this extensively over the years and we have watched it evolve. In this article, we are going to look at the history and where we think the future of Quality Score is going.
If you are new to quality score and have not seen the Quality Score Video by Hal Varian Google’s Chief Economist watch it before reading this article. Hal does a great job of explaining the conceptual basics of quality score.
Quality score actually started life as a keyword status of “Inactive for Search” where Google would simply stop the word if the CTR (Click Through Rate) got too low. The exact percentage was never disclosed but it was somewhere around .5% in the Google search network. The partner and content network were never part of this process. In those days you either gave up on the word, or you moved the keyword to another adgroup and tried to improve the CTR.
The next stage in Quality Score evolution was the static score where the system would periodically pass through your account and update your quality score. In those days, your account would have a default value that it gave to new words and then the routine maintenance would update it for changes. During this time, the Quality Score was fixed and you could see the almost direct impact on your ad positions. In the static version the system looked at the keyword CTR, ad copy, and landing page but no session values. We estimated that in the early stages before historical CTR was available to the system that ad copy relevancy was 80% of the score and the landing page was 20%. As CTR history came available, the score would become more and more based on CTR and by the time the keyword had a couple of months of history it was all about the CTR.
The current Quality Score is calculated on the fly allowing lots of new attributes to come into the formula and this is where it really gets to be fun. Unlike the static version, this one posts back to Adwords the resulting quality score. When Google says that your bid is money times quality score discounted to .01 greater than the bid behind you this is NOT the quality score you see in Adwords. When this change was made the relationship between quality score and organic score got a lot closer because they shared many of the same attributes. If you think like a programmer for a minute this makes perfect sense because Google simply repurposed the organic ranking objects and used them on the keyword, ad copy, and landing page. There are still differences between quality and organic score but your quality score is what Google thinks of the relationship between the search and your keyword.
“How do you improve your Quality Score?”
Glad you asked and actually there is a lot you can do. Quality Score is driven first and foremost by the CTR and best estimates puts this factor at about 65%. Your CTR is driven by the keywords you select and the relationship between them and the ad copy. There is no hard and fast rule but if your CTR is under .75% then you have some work to do. First decide if you care about the word and if you do not then get rid of it. Otherwise look for ways to improve the relevancy between the intent of the keyword and the headline of the ad. You can play with the body all you want but the headline is what drives this world. If people read the body at all they do so only if the headline got their attention so spend lots of time thinking about your headlines. In most cases we find that repeating the keyword concept is critical and connecting a benefit is the second big thing. With only 25 spaces this is not an easy task! I will tell you that we have seen hundreds of tests where a single word in a headline can more than double the CTR.
CTR is not the higher the better so you have to be careful with this. Like many things in Google the calculation appears to be weighted towards a sweet spot. We cannot prove this is exactly what’s going on, but what we see time after time is that a 3-4% CTR is the optimal CTR. Going above this range is probably caused by some trick on the user and Google knows that. If you have an exceptionally high CTR, you should not be surprised if your quality score dips. We are certain that this sweet spot varies by keyword and that it is relative to the CTR of the others in these searches, but in most cases 3-4% is where you want to be. There is one effect that we see commonly and that is a low CTR with a good quality score or a good CTR with a bad quality score. This happens because quality score is relative to the competition not an absolute measurement so you just have to be better than the other guy.
After CTR the next big thing is relevancy and this is estimated at 30% of the quality score. This factor is closely related to the organic score and it has at least 147 attributes that we know of and probably another 300 that we will never figure out. We know most of these attributes because they are on patent filings from Google. The interesting thing about this list of attributes is that over two thirds of them are not directly controlled by the page source. Just like in real life, your relevancy is more about what others say about you than what you say about yourself.
The last major part of quality score is landing page quality and the rule here is “Do no harm.” Landing page quality is about what Google does NOT like. You do not earn points in this area but you can sure lose them. You can have a 10 score coming into this section and violate one of the prime directives and end with a 1. Things like pop-ups, hidden text, and other tricks are a quick way to destroy all your hard work.
Quality scores can tell you certain things:
Score 1: You have done something very wrong. You must confess your sins and request forgiveness.
Score 2-5: Below average look to your CTR and Relevancy.
Score 6-7: Good Solid Scores you are doing most things right.
Score 8-10: Incredible score but probably a very short list of words. Most of the time these are things like your name or major brands that you own. For some reason the 8 score is very rare except in international campaigns.
The key to managing your quality score is to look for patterns in your score ranges. You will often find that 2-5 scores just need to be split out to a new adgroup with ad copy more connected to the search. Consider getting rid of keywords in the 2-5 range that are not really that important to your business. This will improve your adgroup, campaign, and account average quality score and will improve your overall reputation within the system.
We get calls all the time from people looking to get all their keywords to a 10 score and it is simply impossible. A 10 score is the top 0.5% of keywords and Google is not going to give that score out to several words in any one account and it certainly is not going to give that without other words at the lower levels. Simply put the bottom 99% is what makes the top 1% possible!
The other frequent question is how to trick the system to improve their scores beyond what they deserve. Tricks do exist from time to time but taking advantage of these has some very real risks. Google has a department headed up by Matt Cutts that is dedicated to finding and closing holes in the algorithm. When they find these they correct the logic and you can suddenly find yourself going from 10 to 1 instantly.
Quality Score Rule Number 1: Never try to trick Google unless your Engineering Staff is smarter than theirs!
The Future
Google is not done with quality score and just like the search results page it is constantly being tweaked. We think that ad placement will continue to become more and more like SEO and that the major factors are going to be off-page items. More and more it will be what people say about you not what you say about yourself that will drive your quality score. Money is not a factor in SEO and never will be but it will always be the ante to the table in Adwords. Google will continue to value the quality of the search engine results page above your money and they want every link paid or organic to be a meaningful contribution to the search experience. Quality content is King, and it’s going to stay that way if Google has anything to say about it.
In summary:
• It’s about CTR – target 3-4%
• Using a baseball metaphor: .75% is the warning track and .50% is the wall.
• Look for patterns in your scores – deal with keywords in groups
• Get most keywords to 6-7 before worrying about 10 scores. Hit consistent singles before swinging for the fence.
If you really want to get into the painful details of this send me your email address and I will send you a list of 147+ things that go into the Quality Score calculation. bob@smsrd.com
The one constant with Google is change, and recently it seems that it was Quality Score’s turn.We actively manage over 60 accounts; each month we analyze each account and report our observations to our clients. This allows us to see patterns that are not visible to the vast majority of people and this month what is very apparent is that quality scores are on the move.Quality scores are always on the move but not like this. Across dozens of accounts we saw point shifts of 2-3 and all in one direction.
In the bidding process Google treats quality score just like money and it is a good indicator of SEO problems with the site so it is high on our list of things to watch.Because of the way the math works a dip in quality score is the same as reducing your bids, which can put your ad in weaker positions. What we observed is that almost across the board there were 2-3 point reductions in quality score. In the past a 7 was an average keyword quality score, but it appears that 5 is the new 7. From what we can tell this does not seem to have impacted ad delivery because everyone took a similar hit to their scores.
While change can be upsetting, I have to admit that the Quality Score is getting better with this change. Although there are exceptions, generally speaking the relevancy fit of the new quality scores is better than it was before this change. This was not a simple change where they removed x number of points to readjust the center point of the bell curve. Words that were a 7 before ended up from 4-6 and the ones that got the 4’s generally were weaker than the ones that earned 6’s. Quality score in a very broad sense is reasonably accurate and fair and while you might want a higher score the real question is do you deserve it? We get calls every day from people wanting us to improve their quality scores but they almost never want to the hard work required to impact this number.
Our guess of what is happening is that they are moving the center of the curve toward 5 to give more room in the process. With the average sitting at 7 and reporting only whole numbers it gave very little room to show the finer details. In the long run this is better for the system for the center point to be at, well, the center point. Theoretically there may be a risk of losing positions if the change rolls into your account before your competitor. So far we have not seen any indication of that happening, but we are watching very carefully.
Adwords Quality Score and Organic Page Scores share lots of attributes so it is important for both sides of your web strategy team to watch these numbers and to learn from them.
Quality Score is the future of Adwords and the advertisers that fail to manage and invest in this will pay dearly for that short sighted strategy. Quality Scoring and its cousin Organic Scoring share the same DNA and in technical terms we call these building blocks the attributes of the score.
Google knows that the quality of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) is what creates value for Google. This is why creating the best SERP is more important to them than short-term profits. Google takes a long term view and fully understands that quality results drive their success. The SERP has both organic and paid results and both of them are part of the search experience and that is why Google’s Quality Score and Organic Scoring are so closely related.
How Google adds together the attributes and the weight of the attributes is a closely guarded secret. What is not a secret is that improving the attributes will improve the score and the higher the score the better your rank. Rank is nothing more than the scores sorted and this is how your ad or organic listings appear on the SERP.
Ultimately the only difference that will exist between the Quality Score and the Organic Score will be the bid. Today that is not entirely true but it does not take a rocket scientist to see where Google is going with this. While I cannot prove it I would be willing to bet that the logic that produces the Quality Score and the Organic Score will ultimately be the same. Nobody outside of a very select group at Google can tell you exactly how the details of Quality Score or Organic Score are added together but the attributes of the formula are widely known to those that study this area. Actually Google goes out of its way, at times, to tell us what attributes it considers important. They hide the exact weight each attribute gets but they are very open with what they think indicates a quality SERP. Read their patents, take their training, follow their blogs and they will tell you how to be successful. The problem is that doing it the right way is a lot of work and it is not for the instant gratification element of our society. If your goal is to shot to the top of the rankings on either side of the SERP you do not understand what is happening. Many of the important attributes include an “over time” function and that only happens over time.
Most people that study this have historically been in the SEO industry because until the introduction of Quality Score these were not factors Advertisers had to worry about. Today however it’s clear that if want to professionally manage an Adwords Account you have to understand and manage your Quality Score and by default you will end up managing your Organic Score as well.
Improving your Quality Score
Improves your Organic Score
Google makes a big deal out of saying that there is no connection between organic and paid results. This is simply not true and I can prove it. When a business starts to advertise their organic traffic increases and this is both consistent and well documented. What they probably mean to say is that organic positions are not for sale and that is true. However if you improve your Quality Score you will improve your organic position because they are largely the same thing and becoming more of the same every day. In the early days of search organic results were driven almost exclusively by relevancy calculations matching the search query to the page contents. This is also what the first version of Quality Score acted like. It evaluated the search terms, ad copy, and landing page and calculated a relevancy between the items. Quality score is now being calculated on the fly using session specific data to improve the SERP just like organic results.
In the early days the CTR was what drove the value of your bid but Google eventually realized that was too easy to manipulate. The Quality Score is not yet the same as the organic score but it is certainly headed that direction. Any advertiser that is not paying attention to the Quality Score is going to get slammed as this change evolves.
I have been working with search engines since 1994 and so I have seen them evolve over time. In the early days you could optimize a page and have direct controlled impact on the SERP. That is no longer true. Many people will tell you that you can optimize your web site and directly impact the SERP. The person that says that today is lying. Most of what controls the rank on the SERP is not on the page and cannot be directly changed in the page. This is not to say that optimization is a dead art, it is not, relevancy is one of the attributes in the process but it is not the center of the calculation. It is simply one of many attributes.
Today’s SERPs are based on
Trust & Authority
Google has grown past keyword relevancy to an authority and trust model. What confuses some is that relevancy is part of the model but it is only a part of the model. Trust & Authority uses relevancy but it goes way beyond that. If you think about how you build trust in a relationship with a person you will get some idea of the complexity of where Google is going.
Trust & Authority come not from the page but by the experiences that the search engine has with your domain over time. Within your Adwords Account they are looking at how you have done in the past with traffic but they are looking way beyond your simple CTR and page content. Here are just a few of the items they are using to measure this area:
1. Who points to you and what is their Trust & Authority relative to the search topic? 2. How much content you have and does it change over time? 3. Did you suddenly appear or have you been around for a while? 4. How fresh is your content? 5. Is being fresh good or bad depending on the type of content. 6. Is your content duplicated? 7. Does you domain have a history of breaking rules? Cloaking, hidden text, etc 8. What type of domain is it? Editorial, Reference, Ecommerce, or Spammy. 9. Is inbound link anchor text relative to the page content? 10. Has the page topic changed? (Bait & Switch) 11. Did inbound links grow over time or spike? 12. Are inbound links growing or shrinking over time? 13. Does the growth follow a normal bell curve distribution or is it spiked? 14. What is your organic CTR 15. What is your paid CTR 16. Is the search term growing or declining over time 17. Is the organic/paid scoring increasing or declining? 18. User time on page 19. How many searches within the user session? 20. Did they search the same term after coming back from your site?
We’ve identified 135 attributes (plus we’re pretty sure there’s more that haven’t been discovered) that are part of the Authority and Trust Model and these scores become the base of the rank. If you look at these attributes you can see that Google is measuring the web experience that the searcher had on your web site. This type of scoring makes some things that have been done in a past suspect. For example this might change the way we have to look at landing pages.
Like all good computer systems the information at the page level is rolled up to the domain to ultimately contribute to the Domain Authority and Trust levels. Trust is built over time and is based on the history of the domain. If you operate a site that provides a great web experience and engages your audience you will ultimately win in this process. It will take time and dedication to operate an excellent web site. If your approach is to find the “Trick of the Day” or operating a web site with no meaningful content then these practices will hurt your Quality Score and ad positions will cost you more than they should.
There is no doubt that CTR will continue to be part of the Quality Score and those that are not following this carefully might think that it is the Quality Score, but it’s not. In the early stages the Quality Score has less data to work with so the weight of the keyword relevancy and CTR is higher. As time goes along the other factors become available and they become a bigger part of the Quality Score. Since a good Quality Score is driven by a good web experience you might think one creates the other and in some ways it does.
Ultimately Quality Score and Organic Score attributes can be grouped into Domain, Pages, Links, Search Engine, and User variables. You can then develop strategies for each of these attributes and improve your Trust and Authority Score. What you will discover is that the secret is creating a great web experience with excellent content. Google wants to deliver the best possible SERP and they want you to deliver the best possible Web Experience because that will create a win for both.
Run a great site and play by the rules and you will over time build a high level of trust and authority and ultimately win the game. Play the latest trick without concern for its impact on your trust level and you will get a next generation Google Slap and it will be very difficult to earn your way out of that.
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