Google AdWords Penalties For Squeeze Pages?

[Paul Hartunian]

Hi Warriors,

I have a squeeze page set up at www.7dollartrial.com

I want to run some Google AdWords directing clicks to that squeeze page, but I've been told that Google will penalize me for directing clicks to this page - or any squeeze page for that matter. I was told that Google can charge me far more than what I bid for the keyword if I use a squeeze page.

Is this correct? If so, how can I correct the situation.

Also, what is the minimum bid for a keyword?

I don't know a whole lot about AdWords (can you tell?).

Thanks for the help.

Paul

[Easy Cash]

Yes - your relevance of a landing page is important.

Make your ads as relevant to your landing page as possible. Have the same text in your ad as what your page is about.

Have a Contact Us page and a Privacy Policy Page linked to your Landing Page.

Just because the price you bid on a keyword is low or below the first page results, does not mean that you won't get clicks on your ad.

You can still get clicks for 5 cents if the first page results price is $5.

[dburk]

Hi Paul,

Yes, you can use that page as a landing page for AdWords, but expect to earn a poor Quality Score. This means your will need to bid much higher for your ads to have the same position as your competitors with a great QS. And No, Google won't charge you "far more" than you bid.

The problems with this page can easily be fixed and you can have a great Quality Score and pay less than most of your competitors. I have similar pages that have earned 10/10 quality scores (the highest you can get).

A good place to start is with AdWords' Advertising Policies page. Study everything on this page and you will have all the knowledge needed to earn great quality scores.

[dburk]

Hi Paul,

Yes, you can use that page as a landing page for AdWords, but expect to earn a poor Quality Score. This means your will need to bid much higher for your ads to have the same position as your competitors with a great QS. And No, Google won't charge you "far more" than you bid.

The problems with this page can easily be fixed and you can have a great Quality Score and pay less than most of your competitors. I have similar pages that have earned 10/10 quality scores (the highest you can get).

A good place to start is with AdWords' Advertising Policies page. Study everything on this page and you will have all the knowledge needed to earn great quality scores.

[Paul Hartunian]

Hi Don,

Thanks for the information. I'd be interested in hiring someone to rewrite the page. Would that be you?

Paul

[freetraff]

Squeeze page is a vague term, the whole Internet is one big squeeze page

But you raised a nice topic - what type of page should be ok to funnel traffic to your site.

I think this checklist should help:

- pages on other sites
- pages on relevant sites
- pages with unique content (duplicate is not necessarily a problem, but I try to avoid dup content)
- pages that do not appear in packs (hundreds) every day - this is especially dangerous for the new sites

I personally get all this from blog posts pages. Your content republished on niche blogs (with backlinks not touched, of course) is one of the best ways to funnel traffic to your sites.

[IowaGal]

Originally Posted by Paul Hartunian

Hi Warriors,

I have a squeeze page set up at www.7dollartrial.com

I want to run some Google AdWords directing clicks to that squeeze page, but I've been told that Google will penalize me for directing clicks to this page - or any squeeze page for that matter. I was told that Google can charge me far more than what I bid for the keyword if I use a squeeze page.

Is this correct? If so, how can I correct the situation.

Hi Paul -
Everyone here has given you some good advice on having those additional pages such as a Contact Us page, a Privacy Policy, etc. Google just wants to know that you're pointing people to a real site and not to someplace where they might get spammed.

But I wanted to address the question you had about "I was told that Google can charge me far more than what I bid for the keyword if I use a squeeze page."

Actually, Google won't charge you any more than the budget you have set for yourself for that keyword.

So for example, if you have a keyword that you bid .25 and Google now says to you "This keyword needs to have a minimum bid of $1.25 in order to show on the first page." - you personally would have to change that bid on your keyword. Google doesn't automatically do that for you. (Thank goodness).

That being said, typically if you start off at a low bid on a keyword, such as .50 (the minimum amount for the keyword to be "active" within AdWords depends on how much competition there is).

If you're bidding .50/click on a keyword, get few clicks or Google just doesn't like your landing page, they'll then send your ad to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th pages and then tell you "Hey, in order to get back on page one you need to bid $2.50."

This is usually Google's way of telling you that "Your page stinks and we really don't want you advertising here so we're going to force you to pay these stupidly high amounts to try and get you out of here."

Crass, but in effect, that's what they're saying.

Hope that clarifies things a bit.