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Minimum Bid Jumped to $10 Across the Board?

by Rich Blondi
10 replies
  • SEO
    • |
I've been running PPC for awhile for a set of keyword and all of a sudden, the minimum bid for everything is $10.
Google has my Quality Score as poor, it was always at least OK prior.

I've tried to change the URL for the ad to other websites too, to see if it was my site only that was affected, but it seems to be across the board for that keyword, regardless of your site.

Any ideas?
#$10 #bid #board #jumped #minimum
  • Profile picture of the author dburk
    Hi Rich,

    The first thing you need to verify the cause of your poor QS.

    This link should help you with that:

    What's the Keyword Analysis page? - AdWords Help Center

    Once you know which issue is causing your poor quality score, we can then focus on correcting that. Check out the link above and let us know what you find!
    Signature

    * Get Results - Outsource Your PPC Management |
    *     Don Burk Advertising & Marketing - www.donburk.com

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    • Profile picture of the author Rich Blondi
      Here are the details below.
      Keep in mind that what's really confusing for me is that it doesn't consider ANY page relevant.

      I created ad groups for other sites that are very relevant for that keyword, national organizations with #1 SERPS placement for the keyword, and it still doesn't think it's relevant.

      So it seems from my research that it's not letting anything win with that keyword, regardless of the site.



      Keyword Relevance - No problems found.

      Landing Page Help -This page isn't highly relevant.
      Based on the relevance of the associated keyword and ad text, page content, and page functionality.

      Landing Page Load Time Help -No problems found.
      Load time is as fast as the average in your server's geographic region.
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  • Profile picture of the author jjgp80
    Haven't you heard???

    Google has changed the way they measure quality score.

    Inside AdWords: Quality Score improvements
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    • Profile picture of the author Rich Blondi
      Haven't You Read???

      This hasn't taken effect yet.

      "we'll introduce in the coming weeks"

      The fact that it's a raised "minimum bid" is evidence of that.
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      • Profile picture of the author jjgp80
        Sorry, My bad. I quickly read through this yesterday and it came to mind when I read your post.
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        • Profile picture of the author Sylvia Meier
          From reading Perry Marshall's book and from your previous post, I would take it that either you have changed something on your landing page, or Google has now decided that it is not compatible with your keywords. Either way when the bid jumps to $10 plus, for the most part it is an issue with your landing page. Otherwise, it is only an issue with you keywords.

          Hope that helps,
          Sylvia
          Signature
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          • Profile picture of the author johnmiley
            Is it possible you've surpassed Google's allowed keyword density? If you've optimized for SEO on your keywords, maybe you've packed in too many keywords?

            You could try optimizing your keyword phrase just once in the header, once near the bottom of the page, and possibly once in the middle (test it). Also, bold one of the phrase-mentions, and italicize the other. Test it at that.

            I mention it because it's happened to me, when I've gone a little keyword-dense and Google slapped me for it.

            My QS dropped like a rock and therefore, my click prices went up and up. I paid the "stupid tax" until I fixed it. Then all went back to being fine.

            Just an idea to investigate.
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          • Profile picture of the author BrianMcLeod
            Originally Posted by Sylvia Rolfe View Post

            Either way when the bid jumps to $10 plus, for the most part it is an issue with your landing page. Otherwise, it is only an issue with you keywords.
            Actually, I think this is on the right track, but not quite accurate.

            In my experience, $10 min. bids typically means that Google views your domain as crap, your campaign as crap, or worse - your account as crap.

            Bids that double from .10 to .20 or to .50 indicate a landing page, ad copy, keyphrase incongruency. Fairly easy to fix with some experimentation a little effort.

            $1, $2 and $5 usually indicate to me that the domain is questionable to the Google God and that it requires greater sacrifice lest it grow angrier. Feeding it steady virgin content and proper links to the right kind of pages on the site tend to pacify its anger and it rewards you with "Great" QS, thus nickle min. bids return (though I never seem to get those nickle clicks anymore - EVER!)

            Although we have no way of knowing this, it certainly seems like a human editor has flung poo on your campaign. Don't forget, AdWords is not only a computer, there are also people involved that manage "what plays and who pays". If you "live on the wrong side of the tracks", they can be judgmental.

            It seems pretty clear that this campaign is FUBAR. Hate to say it, but I'd export your keywords and delete it, then start from scratch with a new domain, new campaign and a different approach.

            Good luck,

            Brian
            Signature
            Brian McLeod
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            • Profile picture of the author Rich Blondi
              Here's the thing...

              I created a brand new Google account to test and it still occurred, so it's not the campaing or any account related things.

              I created a campaign for about 6 other sites, not mine, other people's within my niche, for testing purposes and the same result. That means that it's slapping every page is not relevant, not only mine.

              So I seem to have taken account and domain specific variables out of the equation and it's still hating it, which leads me to believe the whole keyword set got slapped, which I never heard of.

              As further evidence, there used to be a half dozen or so advertisers, now there's zero, so everyone got booted.
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