I’ve started to notice personalisation happening in the delivery of adwords. An example came up today when I searched for “wedding celebrants melbourne”. I noticed an ad for “string quartet melbourne” and then searched separately for “string quartets melbourne”. I was shown a mix of ads for wedding celebrants and string quartets. Any search for string quartets after that had only relevant string quartet ads, no celebrant ads. I was able to replicate these searches with the same results.

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Is it reasonable to expect to know the rules when paying for advertising? The Google adwords blog stated yesterday that changes to the adwords quality score algorithm will not be pre-announced prior to implementation.

What’s odd about this is that there is quite an extensive help file for adwords. It’s not like the organic search algorithm which has never been outlined officially to the same degree. A search for quality score within the adwords help centre brings up 90 results and they answer questions like “what is a quality score and how is it calculated?”. Ok so at the end of every list breaking down the inputs to quality score there is the catch all “other relevance factors”. So there has always been the assumption that things are taken into consideration other than the main factors like click through rate, ad copy relevance and landing page relevance. However the announcement seems to hint at changes that might be worth announcing but nevertheless won’t be.

This was one part of the announcement. The post was mostly about the types of sites that may be singled out for a poor landing page quality score. These are:

• eBooks that show frequent ads or install malware
• ‘Get rich quick’ sites
• Comparison shopping sites
• Travel aggregators
• Affiliates that don’t comply with our affiliate guidelines

I was surprised to see comparison shopping sites and travel aggregators lumped in with the rest. On reflection it fits in with the philosophy of showing a broad variety of results to searchers as demonstrated by new initiatives such as universal search and the longer standing filtering of duplicate content.

I’m working on a new campaign which fits into the category “comparison shopping sites”. The website fulfils all the guidelines as laid out in the adwords help centre. It has relevant and original content on all landing pages. The campaign is organised into targeted ad groups with relevant ads. It’s only week three so still very early days but the campaign is suffering from a low number of impressions and I’m assuming that the quality scores are predictive and low and it’s a waiting game before realistic quality scores come into play.

It’s a different story if the site will continue to be penalised because it fits into a category that Google treats with special consideration. Comparison sites and travel aggregators are going to have similar content to other sites in their niche. Does it mean that only a subset of sites will be allowed to advertise and the rest will be forced out with high cost clicks due to quality score penalties?

Andrew Boyd has started a blog about blogging in Australia and interviewed me.

I received the latest issue of the excellent Search Marketing Standard magazine yesterday. The theme for this issue is “International Search Markets” with articles on the search industry in the UK, Italy, Germany, Russia and China.

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A month ago I noticed local business results appearing in Google Australia. I’ve been keeping a close eye on it and doing some analysis of the results to get a feel for when these results are coming up and clues to how they are ranked. It’s still unpredictable. For the same industry type the local business results appear for some locations and not others. What you see one day is often different from the next.

I saw local business results for a regional area as opposed to one postcode for the first time yesterday. The area was “Sunshine Coast” and for a variety of business types.

The first three results are clearly very advantageous for businesses. It usually means a spot right at the top of the organic listings with the added advantage of information such as the business phone number on display on the first page and more information such as reviews and images one click away.

Businesses that have detailed, consistent information in a variety of places are given prominence. Information types consist of an overview, details, reviews, photos and web pages. In all the examples I looked at, businesses that have a spread of information across these data types did the best. So businesses that have listings in several of the sources used by Google and also have photos and reviews are ranked highly.

Common reasons for not being present at all in the local business results are:

• The business details are not included in Google Maps Australia. The listings in Google Maps are currently provided by Truelocal so this generally means that the business isn’t listed in Truelocal.
• The business is in Truelocal but the business category is incorrect or the business isn’t listed in all relevant categories.
• There are inconsistencies with the business name and/or the address across multiple sources

I spoke with Truelocal today and was told that they have a data team currently cleaning up the categories and fixing errors. Individual businesses can call and get their listings updated and corrected where necessary. Businesses can also put their details into Google Maps Australia but there is a verification process and a 4 week time span to see the full details.

The first Australian Blogging Conference is being held at the QUT in Brisbane on 28 September.

I’ll be there and looking forward to meeting fellow bloggers.

The format is facilitated discussion rather than speakers and presentations which sounds good.

Click on the image to get the details.