Google announced a change on Friday to how Quality Score is reported in AdWords. The company says the change was made so that it more closely reflects factors that influence visibility and expected performance of ads.
“Under the hood, this reporting update will tie your 1-10 numeric Quality Score more closely to its three key sub factors — expected clickthrough rate, ad relevance, and landing page experience,” explains AdWords product manager Jen Huang.
“Please note that this is only a change to how a keyword’s 1-10 Quality Score is reported,” Huang adds. “It does not change how Quality Score is calculated in real-time for each auction, and thus won’t have any direct effect on your ad performance. So unless you have automated rules tied directly to your reported 1-10 Quality Score, your ads should continue to behave as they did before.”
Google says the change will make it easier for advertisers to take specific actions to improve ads and recognize when changes they make are actually working.
The update will be rolling out to all advertisers over the next few days.
Last year, a company called Vringo sued Google over a couple of patents, and last week, the case began trial in Virginia. The patents are directly related to AdWords and AdSense, which are obviously vital to Google’s revenue.
One patent (6,314,420) is described in the following manner (via Ars Technica):
A search engine system is provided for a portal site on the internet. The search engine system employs a regular search engine to make one-shot or demand searches for information entities which provide at least threshold matches to user queries. The search engine system also employs a collaborative/content-based filter to make continuing searches for information entities which match existing wire queries and are ranked and stored over time in user-accessible, system wires corresponding to the respective queries. A user feedback system provides collaborative feedback data for integration with content profile data in the operation of the collaborative/content-based filter. A query processor determines whether a demand search or a wire search is made for an input query.
The patent was granted to Ken Lang years ago, who sold it to Lycos (also years ago), and eventually bought it back. Lang is now with Vringo, and appears to be greatly interested in getting paid. TechCrunch has a long, detailed version of the story from a friend of Lang’s from earlier this year.
The original complaint, which also goes after AOL, IAC, Gannett and Target, says, “Google has used and continues to use search and search advertising systems that adopt the Lang/Kosak Relevance Filtering Technology. For example, Google adopted the Lang/Kosak Relevance Filtering Technology with its use of “Quality Score.” Google’s search advertising systems filter advertisements by using “Quality Score” which is a combination of an advertisement’s content relevance to a search query (e.g., the relevance of the keyword and the matched advertisement to the search query), and click-through-rates from prior users relative to that advertisement (e.g., the historical click-through rate of the keyword and matched advertisement).”
“Google’s search advertising systems incorporating “Quality Score” – including products such as AdWords and AdSense for Search – generate advertisements and associated links when end users search from Google’s websites including, for example, its main webpage. Google additionally allows third party publishers – via AdSense for Search – to display advertising search results in response to search queries made on the third party publishers’ websites. After adopting the Lang/Kosak Relevance Filtering Technology, Google’s market share significantly grew and its profits from search advertising considerably outpaced those of other PPC advertising providers. The Lang/Kosak Relevance Filtering Technology proved to be extremely valuable to Google, allowing Google to generate greater profits and to expand its operations into many other technology areas.”
The complaint also maintains that Google had knowledge of the patented technology, citing Google’s settlement with Overture in the past.
Obviously, the outcome of this case has pretty big implications for the search industry, and just adds to Google’s stack of legal issues it has to contend with.
As you can see from the lead image, Vringo is also suing ZTE.
When looking at your AdWords account, hover the mouse cursor over one of the keywords and you’ll now see a yellow box pop up with more detailed information about that keyword’s Quality Score. In addition to the general Quality Score of 1 through 10, which you’ve always been able to see, users will now be able to see the specific metrics of how the keyword’s performance compares to other advertisers.
Keywords are assessed in three different aspects: “expected clickthrough rate,” “ad relevance,” and “landing page experience.” For each category, advertisers can see if the keyword’s performance was average, above average, or below average relative to competing ads.
As you can see in the example provided by Google, the status hover of the keyword “track lights” reveals two above average performances and one average performance, which has resulted in a Quality Score of 7.
Google’s Director of Product Management, Jonathan Alferness, who spoke with Pamela Parker of SearchEngineLand, explained the value of this information in terms of marketing strategies. “This is going to give advertisers a deeper look into where they might spend more time focusing and optimizing.”
While access to this new information will not change how Quality Scores are calculated, knowing what three attributes of a keyword are considered in formulating the Quality Score could be a great boon to advertisers. Narrowing down what works and what doesn’t work with a keyword can enhance the advertisement’s relevance and since Quality Scores dictate the prominence and cost of an ad, this will help ensure that marketers are getting the most out of their ads.
Google calculates Quality Score every time a search is performed for one of your keywords. Google says the score can affect your ad auction eligibility, your keyword’s cost-per-click, your keyword’s first page bid estimate, your keyword’s top of page bid estimate and your ad position.
“First, the relevance of a keyword is not entirely determined by its presence on the landing page or the number of times it’s been mentioned on the landing page,” says Arora. “It’s not about how appropriate we find the keyword to the product/landing page but how appropriate the users find it. In other words, the number of users clicking on your ad when they search for that keyword.”
“Second, when we add fresh keywords, initially, they’re awarded a historical Quality Score based on their previous performance on Google.com,” says Arora. “And only once the keyword starts accruing statistics, the system then evaluates its Quality Score based on its recent performance. This doesn’t happen dynamically but is a gradual process.”
Arora talks about one more key ingredient: “We take into account the exact match CTR of the keyword, as it’s a better indicator of the effectiveness of the keyword. (The exact match CTR refers to the number of times the keyword has triggered an ad when the search term exactly matched the keyword.) For example, if our keyword ‘red shoes’ is in broad match, it triggers our ad even for search terms like ‘red shoe’, ‘formal shoes’, ‘horse shoe,’ etc. However, the exact match statistics point out exactly when the keyword ‘red shoes’ triggered our ad and was clicked on by the user when he searched for the exact search term ‘red shoes’.”
There’s plenty more to be said…
“Quality Score is an estimate of how relevant your ads, keywords, and landing page are to a person seeing your ad,” Google explains in its AdWords help center. “Having a high Quality Score means that our systems think your ad, keyword, and landing page are all relevant and useful to someone looking at your ad. Having a low Quality Score, on the other hand, means that your ads, keywords, and landing page probably aren’t as relevant and useful to someone looking at your ad.”
“Suppose Sam is looking for a pair of striped socks,” Google says. “And let’s say you own a website that specializes in socks. Wouldn’t it be great if Sam types ‘striped socks’ into Google search, sees your ad about striped socks, clicks your ad, and then lands on your web page where he buys some spiffy new striped socks? In this example, Sam searches and finds exactly what he’s looking for. That’s what we consider a great user experience, and that’s what can earn you a high Quality Score.”
Google says it calculates quality score by looking at your keyword’s past clickthrough rate, your display URL’s past clickthrough rate, your account history (the overall CTR of all ads and keywords in your account), the quality of your landing page, your keyword/ad relevance, geograhpic performance and your ad’s performance on a site.
Google Chief Economist Hal Varian gives a good explanation of quality score in this video from 2 years ago:
In another help center article, Google discusses how to improve your ad quality by creating “very specific” ad groups, choosing your keywords carefully, including keywords in your ad text, creating simple, “enticing” ads, using strong calls-to-action, testing multiple ads, and regularly reviewing campaign performance.
