Google traffic seems to be slowing down. For about the past week have been getting much more exposure in Yahoo Search Marketing.
Google continues raising bids to make more money. Terms that have been running around 9% CTR for the month, with an average CPC of .15 have overnight been bumped to .20 min bid. Seems as thought when search volume drops, Google raises prices on min bids.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Wednesday, May 14, 2008
teenage jobs
Once again, min bid prices are fluctuating again, with no changes on my part. "Teenage Jobs" seems to bounce around a bit, so will start tracking it. Website is stable now, no changes have been made sense new menu structure was added.
As of early this morning, and yesterday, I think, Min bid is .1. Stats for yesterday are:
Clicks: 25
Impr: 343
CTR 7.28%
Ave CPC 0.06
Wow.. 7.26% CTR and Ave CPC of 0.06 and Adwords sets the mid bid at 0.1 . That makes no sense.
As of early this morning, and yesterday, I think, Min bid is .1. Stats for yesterday are:
Clicks: 25
Impr: 343
CTR 7.28%
Ave CPC 0.06
Wow.. 7.26% CTR and Ave CPC of 0.06 and Adwords sets the mid bid at 0.1 . That makes no sense.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
The latest unexplainable
This evening upon checked my Adwords account, I discovered that a keyword that had a 9.67% CTR ever since April 1 (over a month ago) now has a new, higher Min Bid than the last time I looked (earlier today). After averaging a click cost of .07, with a CTR of 9.67% for over a month, Adwords has doubled the Min Bid from .05 to .10.
After looking further, I've found several more examples of the same nature. Keywords that have high single digit CTRs with average costs well below the newly imposed Min Bid amount have had the min bid raised above my current bid.
Ok, this time I have changed something on the pages that the keywords leads too. I've added a navigation menu, which according to Adwords guidelines "navigation" is a very important factor in IMPROVING the quality score of a page. So I guess the reward (ie. the only change I've noticed) since adding the new navigation menu is a higher min bid. I thought the point of following Adwords guidelines was to improve the price I pay for keywords....guess not.
After looking further, I've found several more examples of the same nature. Keywords that have high single digit CTRs with average costs well below the newly imposed Min Bid amount have had the min bid raised above my current bid.
Ok, this time I have changed something on the pages that the keywords leads too. I've added a navigation menu, which according to Adwords guidelines "navigation" is a very important factor in IMPROVING the quality score of a page. So I guess the reward (ie. the only change I've noticed) since adding the new navigation menu is a higher min bid. I thought the point of following Adwords guidelines was to improve the price I pay for keywords....guess not.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
more of the same
Traffic is minimal these days. Adwords still wanting .15/.2/.3 min bids on the most popular keywords. Getting high single and double digit CTRs on less popular keywords, but a meager 9000 impressions a day. Some of the less popular keywords have adjusted to great and down to .5 but not many.
Saturday, April 5, 2008
A new Ad Group - no change
Creating a new adgroup didn't seem to help. Keywords that had a Min Bid of .15 yesterday, and a good CTR for the day, are today Min Bid .20.
For example.. these 2 keywords were .15 Min Bid yesterday.
Yesterday's stats are:
One kw had 71 clicks of 1326 impressions.
CTR = 5.35% Ave CPC= .15 Current Bid was .16 QS was and still is "OK"
Another kw had 3 clicks of 41 impressions.
CTR = 7.31% Ave CPC = .15 Current Bid was .16 QS was and still is "OK"
Now how do keywords that performed so well (assuming 5+ % CTR is good) get bumped to a Min Bid of .20 for today. Again, neigher the Ad text nor the website changed last night. A kw that had CTR of 6.45% is still ranked as Great w/ Min Bid .05. Hopefully that will last at least a few days.
For example.. these 2 keywords were .15 Min Bid yesterday.
Yesterday's stats are:
One kw had 71 clicks of 1326 impressions.
CTR = 5.35% Ave CPC= .15 Current Bid was .16 QS was and still is "OK"
Another kw had 3 clicks of 41 impressions.
CTR = 7.31% Ave CPC = .15 Current Bid was .16 QS was and still is "OK"
Now how do keywords that performed so well (assuming 5+ % CTR is good) get bumped to a Min Bid of .20 for today. Again, neigher the Ad text nor the website changed last night. A kw that had CTR of 6.45% is still ranked as Great w/ Min Bid .05. Hopefully that will last at least a few days.
Friday, April 4, 2008
The ludicrousy continues
As you'll see below (April results), several keywords that have successfully been pulling in results at an Ave. CPC of .15 now have a Min Bid of .20. These keywords all have a decent CTR and in case you're not familiar with how Adwords works, wouldn't have been getting impressions if I weren't bidding over the Min Bid. In other words, some time during the last 3 days, the Min Bid was .15. There are many more examples of this in this Adwords group and others.
Now, neither the ad text nor my landing page has changed in the past few days, so I can't attribute this raise in Min Bid to my doing anything that would violate any of the Adwords guidelines for landing pages. Hmmm, seems like Google just decided to raise the price for no reason, even when the keywords were bringing in results with a decent CTR. Unfortunately, that is becoming oh so familiar of an occurrence.
Click for larger image.
Now, neither the ad text nor my landing page has changed in the past few days, so I can't attribute this raise in Min Bid to my doing anything that would violate any of the Adwords guidelines for landing pages. Hmmm, seems like Google just decided to raise the price for no reason, even when the keywords were bringing in results with a decent CTR. Unfortunately, that is becoming oh so familiar of an occurrence.
Click for larger image.
Friday, March 14, 2008
This is getting old
Here are the latest examples of the "Google Slap" phenomenon:
A keyword that yesterday had an Ave CPC of .14 and a CTR of 4.8% today is inactive with a .20 Min bid.
A keyword that yesterday had an Ave CPC of .1 and a CTR of 32.15% today is inactive with a .2 Min Bid.
A keyword that yesterday had an Ave CPC of .15 and a CTR of 5.24% today is inactive with a .3 Min Bid.
I could go on and on. I've spoken with Adwords support his morning. A very nice CSR was happy to point me to the Adwords Guidelines on optimizing my website and campaign. Somehow he just couldn't bring himself to directly address the question of why my Min Bids for many well performing keywords doubled overnight. He especially avoided answering why this is the second time in the last 7 days that this has happened.
Supposedly, he is going to his "tech support" group to find more answer. Just can't wait to hear them.
A keyword that yesterday had an Ave CPC of .14 and a CTR of 4.8% today is inactive with a .20 Min bid.
A keyword that yesterday had an Ave CPC of .1 and a CTR of 32.15% today is inactive with a .2 Min Bid.
A keyword that yesterday had an Ave CPC of .15 and a CTR of 5.24% today is inactive with a .3 Min Bid.
I could go on and on. I've spoken with Adwords support his morning. A very nice CSR was happy to point me to the Adwords Guidelines on optimizing my website and campaign. Somehow he just couldn't bring himself to directly address the question of why my Min Bids for many well performing keywords doubled overnight. He especially avoided answering why this is the second time in the last 7 days that this has happened.
Supposedly, he is going to his "tech support" group to find more answer. Just can't wait to hear them.
Happened again last week
Last weekend a large majority of my successful keywords (5% and higher CTR) suddenly became inactive and had a min bid of .20 and .30 cents. I read everything I could on Google's site about how to "optimize" my campaign, ended up removing several 1000s of keywords that had never gotten any, or just a few clicks over the last 9 months, and as of yesterday morning, saw the min bids drop back down into the single digit range, as they've been for the last 9 months or so.
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