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Overture’s Click Index

Posted: April 30, 2003

The click index is indicated by the number of orange bars listed next to your keyword term in your bidding control panel.

This is a relative number based on the click through rates of the other advertisers bidding on the same keywords you have.

Because its a relative position, it is possible to have a 22% click through rate, and considered to have a low click index.

Overture pay per click has never publicly stated all the reasons as to why a low click index keyword become disabled.

In many cases, if the word is highly searched, you pay a lot per month for that keyword, a keyword can keep a low click index for a long period of time and not become disabled

In other cases, a keyword can become disabled in a month’s time.

It is possible to raise your bid so that your keyword is in a higher position, which should gather a higher click through rate. Often this alone will keep a word from being disabled. However, if you do not want to raise your bid, you can also examine the keywords title, description, and matching options to fix the keyword before it gets disabled.

If your keyword is disabled, you have a few choices.

1. Submit the keyword to syndication without changes.
2. Make changes to the title and description to achieve a higher click through rate, and then submit the word for approval.
3. Change the matching options, or add more negative keywords.

We recommend first looking at the matching options and use of negative keywords. Not only look at your ad, but do a search for various keywords which will trigger this ad being shown on partner sites to view your ad how a searcher would see it, including the position on the page, and ads that surround your own.

Then take a look at your title and description. If you are using the Branding over CTR title writing, you may wish to switch to the Branding & CTR title for a while to judge your response rate.

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