Google Adwords Lays down the Law on URLs

4 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on March 21, 2008 in Google Adwords  

I was checking my stats as usual today and noticed an alert for Google in Adwords.

Important Change to URL Policy Enforcement
Starting in April, display URLs for new ads will be required to match their destination / landing page URLs, without exception. Please adjust your URLs accordingly when creating new ads.

What does this mean… Well it means no more url faking… Some Example Ads that won’t fly anymore…

DVD Rental at BLOCKBUSTER
DVD Rental Movies with BLOCKBUSTER.
Over 80,000 Titles. Learn More Now!
BlockbusterDeal.com

When they are sent to www.blockbuster.com.  Ultimately it means is the Url shown has to be the page the user ultimately lands on. People would show various urls like www-.blocbuster.com  or www_blockbuster.com  or even some would show blockbusterdeal.com as their url but send them to the www.blockbuster.com signup page. Google says no more to this.  Good news is they still are allowing you to use tracking urls. Below info is taken from their Learn more page on the issue:

Tracking URLs

Your ads will be approved if the URL of your landing page domain matches that of your display URL domain.

For example, the following would be acceptable:

  • Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
  • Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
  • Landing page URL: www.google.com

However, this example would be unacceptable:

  • Display URL: www.google.com/adwords
  • Destination URL: www.trackingurl.com/google123
  • Landing page URL: www.trackingurl.com

Sub-Domains

The use of sub-domains and additional text within the display will continue to be acceptable, provided the top-level domain matches the URL of your landing page.

For example, the display URLs below would be acceptable for the landing page URL of http://sub.google.com/miscellaneous, as the top-level domains match:

So there you have it. No more shooting from the hip with Google Adwords, no more throwing up a quick url to fake Google out. You will have to build a landing page or site or send them directly to the deal page and show it.  In the past this change would have effected me but i moved away from this method a long time ago so bring it on G!

5.00 or 10.00 Google Adwords bids due to Quality Score

3 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on December 10, 2007 in Google Adwords, PPC  

Are you getting 5.00 or 10.00 Google Adwords bids due to Quality Score.  Don’t worry if you have setup your campaign and landing page properly. I have noticed A LOT lately within the fiirst day of starting a new campaign my bids will jump up to 1.00,5.00, and even 10.00 and a lot of my keywords will go to poor. The crazy thing is i know my landing page or site is good, my ad is good and my keywords are relevant too. What is the deal?  Honestly i think it is Google just trying to get more money out of us. The first time this happened to me i was like oh great here we go again let me figure out what i forgot to put on the landing page or site and fix it etc..  but i found out nothing was wrong. So i waited a day or two and BAM all my words were back to ok and great. What is it… honestly i don’t have a specific answer but i think google is doing it to try to weed out some people or maybe run double or tripple checks on your sites before sending you traffic. It is wierd and a pain, but i have seen it happening more and more. So just let your campaign ride it out. Now if after a day or two you don’t see a change then you most likely have issue with Relevancy, Ad copy, or your site. If you are being hit with these issues you really should read through google terms and suggestions for Adwords they really are helpfull for people getting start or better yet become adwords qualified. One thing you can do is limit your campaigns and don’t put in hundreds of Keywords as i have seen some of my campaigns with more than 50 keywords seem to get hit more often, but as i stated before they go back to good standing. 

Q&A Natural Search Engine Rank, Adwords and Landing Pages

13 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on July 5, 2007 in Affiliate Tips, Google Adwords, PPC  

Today I decided to do a little Q&A due to an email i received from Edwin.

1)I rank number 1 on Natural Search Engine Rank for my niche, but should i still use AdWords?

If you have natural search engine rank for any terms that get searches daily props to you. Especially in a high volume market. Should you use adwords?  YES!!!!  On all my natural ranking sites that i make money off of and i am not capturing the whole audience I use adwords.

a. You can capture more of your audience, as i doubt you are getting 100% of the traffic that is searching.

b.  Make a custom ad towards the search engine visitors, and you can change it often to see what works.

c. Due to you ranking #1 most likely (not guaranteed) you will get good Quality Score which will mean cheap bids.

2)Do colors really make a difference in sales?

 I am assuming you meant on landing and sales pages. Yes they can make a difference. Anything from color to placement to the signup or sale process can make a drastic difference in the amount of sales or leads. The best way is to test different colors or layouts with your main sales or landing page and keep which one converts the best. In the short term you may lose a little but in the long term you will gain more profits.

If you have a question you would like me to answer use the contact form or leave a comment. Sometimes I answer via my blog and others in private. Hope everyone had a happy fourth of July!

Google Slaps Some Affiliate Marketers a round.

5 People Speaking Their Mind - Put In Your Two Cents!

Posted on June 9, 2007 in Google Adwords, PPC  

Google Slaps some Affiliate Marketers a round with adwords latest quality score update. I was checking out the thread on digital point “From great to poor in last few hours” .  While I always hate to see this happen I also realize that Google is trying to clean things up and make progress. BUT I also realize at times Google has thrown out the baby with the bath water.

While i didn’t have any drastic differences take place like going from great to poor, I did notice a few of my keywords that were great go to just ok. But I am not surprised on some of them as they aren’t really targeted. My heavily targeted words stayed dead on the off beat ones had some minor changes but nothing to get up in arms about.

Now on to the big issue if you did get hit by the change… Well here are two Great posts to read that should help, CPA Mini Landing Page Sites and Building a Landing Page.

Whats your take? Did your bids get hit?

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