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Ads were already normalized by position - Stop Freaking Out!

Posted: November 3, 2008

Google made two changes to AdWords Quality Score Calculations while I was away on vacation. The first one was so minor, I didn’t even look twice at it. Unfortunately, it has caused an unnecessary uproar.

Ad position has been taken into account for the calculation of a more precise Quality Score.

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. We’ll update the portion of the Quality Score algorithm that accounts for ad position.

Please note that this does not change the Quality Score Factors Chart – it’s just an update to the algo. I’ve seen some who have freaked out thinking that the information I’ve been giving (and Google as well) wasn’t quite accurate. That’s not true. Google (and my) info has been accurate. CTR has always been normalized by position. Since they recently moved to a ‘query time update’ of quality score, I think this is just a logical extension to CTR projections.

The takeaway? Don’t fret on this one – CTR is normalized by position. Bid what’s profitable for you and don’t think twice about this update other than Google is trying to make their algos better (a good thing).

Higher quality ads are given the more opportunities to move above the search results.

We’re also improving the way we determine which ads show in the yellow region above the search results. 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.

Thank you! I first talked about this issue in 2004. You could essentially ‘lock-out’ a competitor from being able to get into the top spot if you had just one of the main factors a bit low to be considered appropriate for the top spot and your overall bid times quality score was still higher than the other competitors. While most people really don’t want to get into this level of keyword manipulation as its very rarely worthwhile – it was something that did happen in certain niches.

This is a fantastic update. It might be a bit confusing to explain to others, but I actually a fan of this one.

Remember, to be in the top spot you must meet minimum standards on several of the quality score factors. If you have even one of the major factors below par, you could still have a great quality score but your ad would not appear in the top positions. This makes it so that you can leapfrog someone if all of your factors meet these standards.

I’ll be moderating a session at Pubcon next week on quality score, and then giving a day long AdWords seminar in Vegas two weeks from today. I’m guessing some of these new factors will be discussed in depth during both of those events.

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