Google publicly announces another step towards ridding the ‘net of content farms:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=145070#
Category: Search
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As more and more search engines enter the content creation world, will the boundaries of editorial integrity be crossed?
If Google starts acquiring blogs to sell ads on those blogs, wouldn’t they be more inclined to ensure those blogs spoke positively of Google and negatively of its competitors? Okay, perhaps not entirely conspicuously – but if you network of content creation is large enough, maybe it doesn’t matter. Google just wants to make money, and that requires articles people read (a.k.a ad inventory). Sometimes negative articles make you more transparent and create plenty of ad inventory.
Further analysis here: http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=144500&nid=123530#
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AOL just convinced itself to pay $315 for the HuffPost, which produces limited original content, outside of the ranting deranged posts of its readers who comment on the articles HuffPost assembles and reposts from other sites and sources.
Content farms are a true travesty on the internet, hurting high quality content providers and the end user.
The New York Times just penned a great article on this: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/11/business/media/11search.html?hpw.
The bottom line though is it will be tough for Google to crack down on these abusers who provide low value content. They do a great job at capturing traffic, which ultimately brings in traffic that in turn clicks on Google ads… So Google is making a ton of money off of these farms and therefore, it it lowered the rankings of the sites, it could lose money. The hope is that this will not happen because the better sites will get clicked, and generate revenue for Google; and more people will have a better experience, leading to more clicks. Recent data suggests that Google is losing this battle versus Bing. Bing is getting more people to click on a result than Google. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google updates its algorithm to slowly lower the rankings of sites that produce mostly crap content.
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Great article by MarketingProfs (Larry Kim) on Google AdWords Quality Scores and your landing pages.
Page load time not only affects your quality score, but it can dramatically impact page load times. I recently worked with someone who’s landing pages were loading in about 15-20 seconds! That has a major affect on user experience. Very few people with broadband will wait even 5 seconds for a page to load, let alone 20 seconds. We reduced the size and number of images, decreased the amount of and size of includes and modified the hosting and caching settings of the web server. The result was a page that loaded in about two seconds. What an improvement! Think of all the people that were leaving even before they saw the message.
Another very important aspect is to make sure that your landing page matches your keyword or keyword phrase. It’s good to have “H1” tags that have the keyword, as well as sub-headers and bullet points. These all improve the visual recognition among users that your page matches their query, and improves your quality score in the eyes of Google. I know it is a lot of work when you have a lot of keywords. I am working with someone who has 1000’s of keywords and yes, over 250 landing pages. They use a platform that makes building page variations easy and scalable. You might not need such tools, but that doesn’t excuse you from building pages that match your search terms.
Similarly your landing pages should visually match your display ads. Remember that your landing pages should be separate from your organic website, so you need not worry too much about SEO and duplicate content. Your landing pages are intended to support your paid traffic, not organic searches.
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I’ve shared my strong opinions towards click fraud regarding various ad platforms such as Google AdSense and Facebook before, so I’m not surprised by a recent article I came across by MarketingProfs.
The article discusses data detailing how most mobile app users click on advertisements by accident more than they do on purpose.
Think about that! Let’s say it’s 50/50… That means you really need to double your cost (or divide your clicks by two) when calculating expected ROI and other metrics.
For instance, I know that 40% of the clicks on my Facebook ads never get counted by Google Analytics, meaning that those clicks don’t make it to my landing page (or a select few don’t have JavaScript/cookies enabled, which is very low). So I know that 40% of what I get charged by Facebook is a sunk cost, and provides no value. So when I calculate and try to predict the performance of future campaigns, I always make sure I factor in the 40%.
When doing mobile ads, it’s important to realize that your conversion rate may be a lot better than you see, because half of the people clicking your ad are going to abandon immediately. So divide that by two, and that’s a more accurate click-to-conversion rate.
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I’ve recently started running a number of large campaigns on Facebook with decent success. My biggest problem is that the data I receive via the Facebook interface differs vastly from my Google Analytics data. I tend to believe G/A data, like it is my bible, so I’m a bit annoyed. Facebook’s reply to my inquiry was the standard reply that GA only records visitors to your site that don’t have JavaScript blocked or cookies disabled, etc… I don’t buy this as the primary issue because the discrepancy in clicks is nearly 40%. And 40% of Facebook users are not blocking cookies and JavaScript.
There’s a big issue with click fraud on Facebook which is a little odd, because Facebook doesn’t have an AdSense network like Google (where click fraud is a big issue). But, from what I’ve researched on the web, it seems that some competitors in certain industries do employ methods for clicking on competitor ads to exhaust their budgets. Based upon Facebook’s immaturity in the advertising space, I’m curious to see if they are equipped to detect, prevent and handle these types of abuse. I would guess probably not… Even Google was a bit late to the game in this regard and still has it’s work cut out in my opinion.
So, I wasn’t too surprised to learn that Facebook’s #3 advertiser is a site called make-my-baby.com which requires you to install a browser plug-in before continuing. It’s a toolbar that is a Bing-affiliate… meaning that every time you do a search and click an ad, Bing and the affiliate (the website I just mentioned) make money. So, they just need to get you to their web site once and the money rolls in… clearly it is working based upon the amount of dough they are dropping. Read the full story here: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebooks_3rd_biggest_advertiser_is_a_bing_affilia.php
Clearly, the only person who gets hurt here is the consumer, who gets a poor search experience perhaps… but, advertisers suffer because their rates get inflated as profits are diluted. I don’t Facebook or Bing care, since both profit from the situation. One shady toolbar company rakes in the bucks too!
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Great article on media post regarding the 2010 paid search results:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=143089&nid=122741
Not surprising, Google’s market share increased and the Yahoo-Bing relationship created havoc for advertisers (I can relate to this as I observed many unexpected results to search campaigns upon this merger).
CPC for Google continues to rise, and branded search continues to pay dividends for advertisers.
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Just saw this question in a marketing forum and thought I’d share my answer…
QUESTION:
Google Adwords – Using Competitors Names?I’m starting a google adwords campaign and looking to generate as much relevent traffic as possible.One way is to bid on competitor names but I am starting to get a message that I have a low quality score for these.Has anyone done this before and got around this issue?Also what is a reasonable budget to give this campaign a shot?Also what sort of monetary limit is reasonable to set on a per click basis?MY ANSWER:A low quality score is typically the result of a low CTR (click through rate). Low CTR’s are the result of one or more of the following variables:- your ad copy is not relevant to the keyword you are buying
- your ad copy is not relevant to what the searcher is looking for
- your ad is not being displayed in premium places (due to low bid or low quality score)
- Your quality score may be affected by a poor landing page – one that does not have content (text) that is relevant to your ad and keyword. The best text ad campaigns have their own landing pages, rather than just direct people to a common web page on your site.
With regards to bidding on competitor’s keywords, it’s a grey area. If you are selling tires and you bid on the brand name of a tire, you should have that tire’s info on your landing page. If not, people will bounce from your landing page.There are also a number of legal issues with bidding on competitor names. I am not an attorney, so I will not provide legal advice in this forum, but I do know that many cases on this issue are pending. So long as your ad does not confuse the searcher into thinking you are that company and it is clear that you are a competitor, you are “probably” okay. But, I would recommend as a matter of policy that you do not bid on competitor names at all. Typically these convert to leads poorly, because searchers were not looking for your site, they were looking for the competitor’s site. Plus, if you bid on competitor’s names, what’s to stop them from doing the same, and that drives up the cost of your branded keywords (which should be your bread and butter). You’ll start a keyword bidding “arm’s race”.Your question about budget and CPC is completely variable depending upon your business model, objectives and industry. Certain keywords can cost $25 per click in various industries, while others can cost just pennies.Some companies literally spend millions of dollars per week on search, and can afford unlimited budgets, while other can only spend a few hundred. This is entirely driven by your business model, so I cannot provide any advice there.It is not a violation of Google’s Advertising policy to bid on competitor’s names in the USA. However, you still may not want to do this. The person who said “Google frowns on this” is incorrect. But like I said, there are court cases pending, as this is a very active area of Internet law. -
Here’s a great post containing some compelling statistics about the importance of a brand in search… pay close attention to the stat that shows about 1 in 3 people don’t know the difference between the paid ads displayed and the organic results. Also of note is the strong role brand awareness plays in driving search queries.
http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7027-20-stats-you-might-not-know-about-user-search-behaviour
Dan Soschin 