Google Adwords: Website types singled out for low landing page quality score

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?