Google Contradicts Itself Again - Quality Score

[JonathanR]

I had a nice campaign going along for months with a pretty major keyword showing a quality score of 7/10 in adwords. I rank number 5 in the organic results for this keyword. My CTR was always 2 to 2.5%. Last week out of nowhere my quality score fell to 3. How is this possible? I have a good CTR and Google itself acknowledges in its organic rankings that my site is quite relevant to the keyword.

This has happened before. The minimum bid rose 500% and I paused the keyword. Within a few weeks, suddenly Google is accepting my old low bid.

Can anyone help explain this? Sometimes I love adwords and sometimes I just never want to hear the word Google again!

[Floyd Bogart]

Could it be that your competitors were experiencing better CTRs than you, and the drop was relative to improved results of others? Not entirely sure if this is within Google's methodology, but it could explain it. No?!

[Joshua.E1]

What was your average position with that keyword?

Or you might want to change your text ad.

[Lucid]

QS is highly related to your CTR compared to others for the keyword. My guess is others have higher CTR than you.

There also appears to be a hard hit if you are an affiliate marketer. Masking your links seem to work.

[Steven Carl Kelly]

Originally Posted by JonathanR

My CTR was always 2 to 2.5%. Last week out of nowhere my quality score fell to 3. How is this possible? I have a good CTR and Google itself acknowledges in its organic rankings that my site is quite relevant to the keyword.

Just a quick question, Jonathan... I'm curious why you consider a 2% CTR as good. I'm not criticizing mind you, but I'm always shooting for a double-digit CTR rate in Adwords (10.0% plus). From my POV, 2% would be a very poor performer for a campaign that you indicated is months old.