Proof Positive That Google Uses Page Content in AdWords Quality Scoring

I recently participated in a survey that PPC Hero conducted regarding Google’s AdWord Quality Scoring formula.

The survey produced some interesting results – primarily seeing what other “PPC experts” think are the critical factors in Google’s Ad Rank formula (the formula that determines Quality Score).

Honestly, I don’t remember how I answered the survey. But, below is a table with how I would rank each criteria today:

Of course, with Google rolling out its new top placement formula (see my previous Google AdWords new formula post), the importance of Max Bid just became elevated!

One thing I wanted to share about Landing Page Keyword Relevance is a recent experience I had with a client that highlighted how crucial landing page copy can be in an AdWords campaign.

We were bidding on a series of brand names in order to drive people to a site to learn more about the brands in question (this was not a bid-against-the-competitor campaign).

We had hundreds of keyword variations for each brand in order to capture both high-volume and low-volume “tail” traffic. The majority of the keywords were set to “inactive” by Google and a bid of $5.00 was required to re-activate the keywords.

We had the client put up specific landing pages with information about each of the brands. Of course, the pages contained rich information about each of the brands. Within 2 hours of posting the new content, the keywords had all be re-scored and re-activated at the (much) lower bids we already had in place.

If I ever needed an affirmation that page content counts for PPC, that was it!