You have got to be kidding me right!
Google is going beyond the realm of reason here. Why not just say "hey we are going to charge you whatever we want and you will never have the ability to work out how much you pay."
Who is the arbitrator of High Quality or Low Quality... what happens if my page is seen by someone having a bad day?
Come on Larry and Sergey if you need more money just let us know and we will pass the hat. That would be far better than the robbery you are performing with this roll out!
Any idea how many travel sites advertise and then drop you in front of a search box, so you can search again? Instead of dumping you at what you asked for? Far too many.
ReplyDeleteHow about all those electronics products where you get left on the home page to solve an incomprehensible selection of lists to find a product? Far too many of them.
Or you search for a named item only to get dumped on a page that tells you it is not in stock and apparently, when you talk to the sales staff, never has been or will be in stock?
These are some examples of low quality LPs. If paid search works it is because it is specific. Can you think of any mechanism that would lead these (industry standard, completely normal, typically bad) sites to develop, give and use a better URL? When you can, give us all a shout. Lower conversion rates clearly weren't enough pressure, because the excuse can always be made that "this is what our competitors do".
In the meantime I welcome, opaque though it is, Google's move to improve the quality of paid search. I have no fear that the sites I work on will be just fine... so long as they take the advice that I give, and if they don't they'll eat costs. .. their decision.
Cheers, JeremyC.
I agree completely with the first post...Google is out of their mind.
ReplyDeleteJeremey might have a point that they are helping eliminate some of the spam sites that plague the internet. BUT, they are also damaging many small businesses in the process.
Just this morning Google raised my minimum bid from $0.05 to $1.00 per click...which is WAY outside of what I can afford to be profitable in my niche.
And that's with an average CTR just under 10%. My landing page is not misleading at all, either. It is a simple sales page directly related to the keywords I'm bidding on and the ads I'm displaying.
After spending 2 hours on the phone with Google, I was no closer to finding out how I can raise my quality score for my landing page. I was just given the run around.
Not at all happy,
Allan
Funny - if Google keeps going down this track they are risking their entire business.
ReplyDeleteBill Gross of GoClick and IdeaLabs fame - is working on the CPA model at snap.com - I hope he can pull it off.
Funny I am on the panel for arbitrage at the SES in San Jose next month.