IMMania.com

It seems that Google was in the mood for another Adwords Slap heading into this weekend. Reports of the effects of this latest Slap started surfacing in forums Friday evening. This ineveitably sent me scurrying off to check my active campaigns in Adwords for any signs of being abused by the Big ‘G’.

Out of 25 campaigns, only one ad group in one campaign was slapped, and it was for a fairly competitive set of keywords. This particular ad group didn’t receive many impressions or clicks so it wasn’t a major hardship to shut it down. The rest of my campaigns, as of this moment, remain untouched (knock on wood).

Adwords had a scheduled system maintenance yesterday and it seems that the full force of the latest Slap was brought to bear once this maintenance was completed.

I’ve read several accounts of people having the minimum bids of most all of the keywords in their search campaigns raised to $10.00.

Can we get a big “Ouch!” on that one?

To be honest, I’m still looking over my shoulder in my Adwords account because I know the kind of sites some of these people got slapped for are very similar to some of my own.

Can it be only a matter of time for me?

Perhaps, but it won’t be the end of my world because the handful of sites I have like these don’t generate much income. Sure, every little bit helps, but it might actually be an opportunity to readjust my site building/traffic generation strategies for these types of sites. Yeah, I know, I wouldn’t be so nonchalant about it if these sites were big revenue producers.

The larger issue in all this is just what the heck does Google want when it comes to granting a Great Quality Score?

It does sometimes seem arbitrary as well as unfair when Google does their Slap-Happy dance. Since the first Slap back in the summer of 2006, there has been a lot written about what Google wants both by IMers as well as by Google itself. Yet, many people who follow these recommendations still find some of their Adwords campaigns getting slapped.

The speculation has been that Google now wants the top sponsored search results to be similar in quality to the top organic search results. This then comes down to a “quality user experience” for people searching with Google.

For those of us using Adwords to promote affiliate marketing pages, we need to resist being branding with the “Thin Affiliate” label. If the content on our landing pages consists primarily of affiliate links and contextual advertising such as Adsense, then Google will decide that our landing pages are of a very poor quality.

Expect to get slapped eventually.

For newer sites, you may be granted a reprieve, and if you can add some worthwhile content to your sites and maybe a few outbound links to other useful content, then you may get a second chance. You will need however, to create a new campaign and point it to your spruced up pages. Don’t try to reuse slapped campaigns.

For sites that have been around a while, and Google has lost their patience with, then expect to get these sites banned. There’s usually no bringing them back from banishment, and calling and complaining to the Adwords support staff is a big waste of time. Just move on with a new domain and make it more useful to visitors or at least in Google’s eyes.

Jeremy Palmer of “Quit Your Day Job” and “PPC Classroom” has a free report available from his blog entitled “The Unofficial Guide To The Google Quality Score”. It’s a very good read and may give you the foundation for what it takes to get into the good graces of Google Adwords.