Three Big Changes to Googles Quality Score

Lesley Gross - September 19, 2008

We knew they were coming, and today, they arrived: The changes Google has been talking about for months. As with most overhauls, it is reasonable to expect good and bad effects.

First, ad rank will be determined at the moment of query instead of based on historical data and performance of the individual ad. By doing this, Google will now be able to take into account certain characteristics of the searcher such as, where they are searching from and what sites they came from. As you can imagine, this means that advertisers can expect varying positions based on the geographic market.

In addition, the competitiveness of certain keywords will fluctuate where advertisers are only displaying their ads at certain times in a day. For example, a B2B company can assume that their ads will now become more expensive during peak business hours.

The second change is definitely the best news for those with little, to no historical data in Google Adwords. Google will no longer mark keywords “inactive for search,” which appeared on many campaigns that hadn’t yet earned a good quality score.

Finally, the third change will provide advertisers with an estimated bid for each keyword to garner the first page of their search results. Now this could be good in a way, giving us more insight into the marketplace and making our ads more visible. However, on the flip side, if everyone started to raise their bids to try to get to that coveted first page, the necessary bid will continue to increase.

All in all, Google claims they are making these changes in an attempt to be more impartial and make it easier for all advertisers, but in the end, many experts and critics are raising good points of how this will continue to drive up our marketing spends.