Google AdWords Archives

On June 30th, Mozilla released Firefox 3.5. On June 30th, we had the first complaints at Google AdWords Help that the Google AdWords interface was not supported in Firefox 3.5.

The error message being displayed to AdWords advertisers was:

Support for Firefox 3.5 is coming soon. Until then, please use an earlier version of Firefox when viewing the new interface.

Google fixed it a day later, and we have confirmed reports in that thread that the new AdWords interface is fully operational in Firefox 3.5. Oh, and by the way, it is also now working in Safari 4.0.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help .

We knew Google was going to discontinue the 800# call tracking feature "shortly after May 5, 2009." Well, it seemed to have continued to work, until yesterday.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports from one advertiser who religiously used these free 800#s that they no longer seem to work. He said:

At this moment it looks like the numbers are dead. If you were waiting to swap them out, do it right now. I am trying to confirm when they turned off. It has to be within the last 3 or 4 days.

It is a shame but maybe Google Voice will come up with 800# support soon. The call tracking was a nice feature, but there are plenty of companies that offer that as a paid service, if you really love it.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday Google announced the latest version of the AdWords API, version v2009. This is an upgrade from AdWords API 13 which was released in October 2008. There are major changes between v2009 and version 13 and Google wants you to be well prepared for the changes.

To get ready for the new version, you need to apply for the beta of v2009. You can however begin playing with the v2009 sandbox at any time.

You can read about the changes in the AdWords API upgrade over here. Version 13 will not sunset until early 2010.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords API Group.

Some AdWords professionals who manage their customer campaigns via the My Client Center (MCC) are having technical issues with the AdWords console. A WebmasterWorld thread is reporting that these advertisers are being booted out of the individual campaigns and back to the MCC front page, making it extremely difficult for them to manage these accounts.

This has been happening on and off since late May. The first report said:

I keep getting kicked back to the MCC level when working in our individual accounts. Sometimes it happens just seconds after entering the accounts, sometimes after just a couple minutes. Very annoying... anyone else experiencing this?

Even eWhisper, a WebmasterWorld moderator, experienced the issue the other day. AdWordsAdvisor said he/she has not heard of reports of this on a major scale but promised to try to look into the issue.

Hopefully this is not impacting most advertisers and more importantly, hopefully this is not impacting you when you need to make an important change.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google recently launched Google Export Advisor a tool that uses "Google translation and search data to provide an estimate of market opportunities across the world." Search Laboratory has an excellent post looking at how it works, but I'll do something similar here.

This tool combines three Google tools:

• Keyword Tool: Use this to get new keyword ideas. Just enter a few descriptive words or phrases, and it will generate a list of keyword ideas.
• Google Translator: Enter a search phrase in your own language to find information in other languages.
• Traffic Estimator: Enter your keywords, select the relevant language and geographic targets and this tool will estimate the traffic available for each keyword.

Here are screen captures of what the tool does:

And then it determines profitability:

Forum discussion at Sphinn and WebmasterWorld.

Google is offering a free webinar to educate advertiser on the new AdWords interface. The webinar takes place tomorrow, Friday, June 26th at 11am (PST). To register, go to this URL and sign up.

This webinar will teach you how to use the new interface. Ariel Bardin, Product Management Director for the new AdWords interface, will guide you through the new interface. You'll learn how to manage your account using the new interface and make use of the new features.

You can even submit questions prior to the webinar for Google to answer. To submit your question, go over here.

The previous webinar was successful, so if you missed it, try not to miss this one.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Update: This is not something Google is testing. The WebmasterWorld member sent me a screen shot and it has been that way since at least 2004. So ignore this post.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports one person seeing the display URL of an AdWords ad showing up above the ad's title and description. In fact, this person is noticing this ad behavior just for the premium ads, not the ads on the right hand side of the page, only the ads at the top of the page.

I personally cannot replicate this on a Mac or PC, using IE, Firefox or Safari. So I emailed this person, asking for a screen shot. This, of course, can be some form of malware infecting the user's browser or it can be some type of test Google is running.

I decided to "photoshop" what this might look like:

Clearly, this looks a bit weird, so I am anxious to see how it looks like on the forum member's screen.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google Blogoscoped and Wall Street Journal are reporting on a new beta advertising product from Google named "Google Product Ads Beta." The new beta is invite only and seems to be a new way of advertisers paying for their ads, this time, based on conversions and commissions.

The ads are priced not based on click but on commission set by the advertiser for a conversion. Here is the FAQ emailed and captured by Google Blogosoped:

You specify the commission rate for conversions that take place via clicks on Google product ads. Minimum pricing is your standard publisher rate, plus the network fee. To maximize your competitiveness among advertisers participating in product ads, we recommend a higher commission with the Google product ads relationship.

These product ads will run independently of AdWords, but seem like they will show up in the AdWords location, as far as I understand. To be included, you must have a Google Base product feed. The ad rank technology is similar to AdWords, but differs based on the commission. Ad Rank = Commission × Quality Score.

Some believe the product ads on this commission are in form of what we reported earlier with product from AdWords ads and even the one line product links, here are screen captures:

Having products show up in the AdWords listings is extreme enough, having them prices based on an affiliate model is way more extreme.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Blogoscoped Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread complains that the AdWords management interface at adwords.google.com does not rendered on the iPhone (and possible Android). In fact, I tried it and it booted me out after several seconds. I managed to take a screen shot of the page trying to load.

In addition, if you try to use the AdWords interface with Safari 4.0, Apple's latest release of their browser, you get the following message:

Support for Safari 4 is coming soon. Until then, please use an earlier version of Safari when viewing the new interface.

AdWordsAdvisor did comment specifically about a mobile AdWords interface. Let me quote what the Google representative said:

This is understood to be very important, Kobayashi, and though I can not predict a timeline (mainly since I don't know it) I do know this is being worked on.

So it seems like a mobile version of the AdWords interface is coming in the future. When exactly is the million dollar question.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We know that Google is forcing AdWords advertisers into the new AdWords interface sooner then later. Besides for all the complaints about the interface, some are complaining that Google is encouraging advertisers to sign up for courses on how to use the new interface.

A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around why Google is first of all forcing advertisers into an interface they don't like and then encouraging them to pay to learn how to use it.

Google organizes what are called Seminars for Success, which are actually mostly run by third-party agencies that specialize in training AdWords customers. The day long seminar costs $249 for AdWords classes.

The advertiser is steamed about paying for this. He said:

I received an email from Google saying in effect their teaching their adwords training sessions in the new interface..translation...pay us and we will teach you the new interface!!!

The cost for the seminar seems relatively small. It seems like Google is subsidizing the costs for the most part. I am not sure I agree with giving these seminars for nothing.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

This Saturday, on June 13th, between 10am to 2pm (PST), Google will be performing system wide maintenance on the AdWords platform.

The Inside AdWords Blog wrote:

On Saturday, June 13th, 2009, the AdWords system will be unavailable from approximately 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT due to system maintenance. While you won't be able to sign in to your accounts during this time, your campaigns will continue to run as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience.

This is typical monthly maintenance, so no need for concern.

If you have any questions or concerns you can post them in either Google AdWords Help or WebmasterWorld Forums.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help or WebmasterWorld.

In April at Search Engine Land I reported Google agreed to settle on an AdWords case for $20 million. The case was over the daily budget feature and how many advertisers may have exceeded that budget by 120% on occasions.

Google said then, "Google believes the claims are without merit, but we are pleased to have the litigation behind us and to move forward with our business objectives."

Now, I am seeing reports via DigitalPoint Forums that dozens, if not thousands, of advertisers have received a notification, via email, about this settlement.

I have a copy of the settlement as a PDF document for those interested in the extreme legal details.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A WebmasterWorld thread has discussion around why the display URL differs in the "More Sponsored Links" section, when compared to the normal ads on the search results page.

WebmasterWorld's Preferred Member, Rehan said:

The first thing to realize is that the Sponsored Links search is unrelated to the keywords chosen by the advertiser to display the ad. Instead, the results shown are the ads that include the query words in the ad text. That's why you'll see only one or two ads at google.com/search?q=raccoon+squirrel (because it's not a great keyword to advertise for) but lots of them at google.com/sponsoredlinks?q=raccoon+squirrel (all of the ads shown contain those two words).

So if the Sponsored Links search is unrelated to the keywords and shows just the ads that have the query words, that's why it uses the default destination URL for the ad rather than the specific ones for the keywords.

The more link came to AdWords ads sometime in late 2004. Google then updated the design of that page in July 2008. Which is actually when the above changes happened.

You can read more about the more sponsored link at this Google help page.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Some advertisers are noticing a new feature in Google AdWords. The feature is named "bid simulator" and it shows you what number of impressions and position you can expect if you increase or decrease your bid.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread has a picture of the feature from one advertiser. Here is a screen shot taken from the PDF linked to below:

This seems to have been released on May 20th to some advertisers. Someone posted a PDF document of the reference guide to Google AdWords Bid Simulator. Here is the PDF and below is an embed of it:

Google Adwords Bid Simulator Reference Guide

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: Google sent me a statement about this, saying:

As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, Google constantly tests new tools to improve our AdWords product offering and provide additional benefit to our advertisers. We are currently testing a feature called "bid simulator," which helps advertisers make informed and efficient bid management decisions by estimating the results they would have achieved using hypothetical bid values. This feature is currently in a limited beta with a small number of advertisers. We have no additional news to announce at this time regarding developments for Google AdWords.

In April Google began pushing advertisers to test the new AdWords interface. As it turns out, most advertisers dislike the new interface but that is not stopping Google from now forcing the new interface on some advertisers within 30 days.

Here is the email I received from Google a couple days ago:

In the coming weeks, we'll upgrade your AdWords account (Customer ID: 000-000-0000) to a new web interface designed to make campaign management faster and easier. You can try it now; log into your account to use the new interface immediately.

You'll have at least 30 days from the date of this email before you'll be required to use the new interface to manage your campaigns. During this time we'll continue to release additional features and make adjustments to the new interface based on advertiser feedback.

A WebmasterWorld thread is now discussing the topic of being forced into the new interface. The main issue that I see that advertisers are upset about is the requirement to scroll horizontally (left to right) to use the new interface. There are other quirks advertisers are upset about.

Ready or not, here it is coming and you better be ready for it. You can always use the AdWords Editor to bypass the web interface as much as possible. In fact, Google released a new AdWords Editor last night.

To prepare you for the new interface, Google created the following resources:

• Review the new interface microsite to get a quick overview of the changes and watch videos demonstrating the improvements: google.com/adwords/newinterface/
• Our "Getting Started Guide" will give you an overview of major new features and their benefits. You can download a PDF at: google.com/adwords/newinterface/new_interface_guide.pdf
• Wondering how to complete common AdWords tasks in the new interface? Visit our "How to" guide at: google.com/adwords/newinterface/standard/ads-and-keywords.html

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

The other day, we polled our readers asking if you trust Google's keyword suggestion tool. We received a lot of responses, well over 200 and I wanted to share them with you.

The majority, 76% said they do not fully trust the keyword tool. While 23% said they do trust the keyword tool. Trusting Google is not something most people do these days.

Let me break down the results for you.

Question: Do You Trust Google's Keyword Tool?

:: Not Fully said 147 respondents or 62%
:: Yes said 55 respondents or 23%
:: No said 33 respondents or 14%
:: Other answer... said 4 respondents or 2%

But I bet most of you still use the tool. :-)

Forum discussion continued at HighRankings Forums.

This story was pre-written and scheduled to go live on May 29th.

About a week ago, we asked our readers if they like or dislike the new AdWords trademark policy. The new policy gives some advertisers the ability to use trademarked terms in the ad copy.

We asked our readers if they like the new policy and the majority do like it.

Question:Do You Like Google's New AdWords Trademark Policy?

:: Yes, About Time said 38 respondents or 64
:: No, This Is Bad said 20 respondents or 34%
:: Other answer... said 1 respondents or 2%

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Google has quietly announced in a Google Groups thread that they have finally added the impression share columns to the AdWords API. The new columns, currently visible in the API documents are:

• exactMatchImpShare which is the Exact Match IS (measure)
• impShare which is the Impression Share (IS) (measure)
• lostImpShareBudget which is the Lost IS (Budget) (measure)
• lostImpShareRank which is the Lost IS (Rank) (measure)

Jeff Posnick from the Google AdWords API Team said they will likely post on this at the AdWords API blog in the next few weeks.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google provides a very popular Keyword Suggestion Tool that many SEMs rely on. But a HighRankings Forum thread questions how trustworthy the tool is.

Many SEMs use the tool because it is convenient and Google provides the estimated search volumes. At the same time, many SEMs know how to take Google's estimates and apply them to their campaigns. Experience and campaign history helps SEMs learn this trade.

In fact, did you know that the keyword tool allows you to adjust the type of query based on match type? After you run the tool, you can then click on a drop down menu to select the match type, broad, phrase, exact or negative match.

But the big question is, do you trust the keyword tool? Take our poll:

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Google AdSense has an ad unit named "link units." The link unit ads look like links and if you click on them, they take you a landing page of Google ads. In the past, those ads were only text ads. Now, Google is showing image ads on the bottom of the page.

Here is a screen capture:

Google explained more about how and when they are triggered:

These image ads are contextually targeted, based on the link unit topic users clicked to reach the ads. If no image ads are available for the given topic, we'll only show the original text ads -- in other words, we won't show a PSA or insert a blank space in place of the image ad in this case. Advertisers can bid on these image ads on a cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM) basis, so you'll generate earnings for valid clicks and impressions. You can review the performance of image ads on your link unit pages by generating a link unit report on your Advanced Reports page.

Here is a sample of a real link unit Google ad:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A WebmasterWorld thread has several AdWords advertisers complaining about the site exclusion feature in AdWords. With the new user interface to manage campaigns, advertisers are confused how the exclusions work.

Does the exclusion block domains in the search network or content network, or maybe both? I personally tried it myself and it is not clear if you can block your ads from showing up on specific sites by search or content network. It would appear that you can block sites globally from both search and content network, but I am not sure if that is true.

No wonder 56% of AdWords users dislike the new interface.

Try it yourself, go to AdWords, click on a campaign and then click on the "network" tab. You should then see an "Exclusions" plus sign, click it and it will show you the campaigns you can apply the exclusions to. But it doesn't seem to specify content versus search networks:

AdWordsAdvisor chimed in on the thread, saying:

I am 99.8% sure that this is simply a new UI on top of the exact same functionality as before.

I have pinged a colleague on the new UI team to confirm this (since I do hate to be wrong in public) but discover that she is traveling and not reachable.

I'll post again after I've had the chance to speak with her.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A couple days ago, Google announced that they will now show all queries that resulted in an AdWords click as opposed to grouping some of the less popular keywords in a category called "other unique queries."

This clearly provides more transparency for advertisers to know how each and every click is being spent.

This is really a great thing that I know advertisers have been asking from Google for a while.

But I have yet to see any threads or discussion on this feature outside of a single post at WebmasterWorld. Do advertisers not care or did they miss the announcement?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

While my wife was giving birth to our baby, Google sent me an email telling me they have made a serious change to their AdWords trademark policy. The AdWords blog explains that now, in the US, advertisers can use the trademark term(s) in the ad text, in certain conditions. Here is Google's language:

That is why, in an effort to improve ad quality and user experience, we are adjusting our trademark policy in the U.S. to allow some ads to use trademarks in the ad text. This change will bring Google's policy on trademark use in ad text more in line with the industry standard. Under certain criteria, you can use trademark terms in your ad text in the U.S. even if you don't own that trademark or have explicit approval from the trademark owner to use it. This change will help you to create more narrowly targeted ad text that highlights your specific inventory.

For example, under our old policy, a site that sells several brands of athletic shoes may not have been able to highlight the actual brands that they sell in their ad text. However, under our new policy, that advertiser can create specific ads for each of the brands that they sell. We believe that this change will help both our users and advertisers by reducing the number of overly generic ads that appear across our networks in the U.S.

Advertisers can begin submitting new ads to Google AdWords with that meet these trademark criteria on 11am PDT on May 15th. And those ads that meet the criteria will not begin showing until June 15th.

Scanning the forum threads, specifically at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums, you see that people are either in love with this change or hate it. Trademark holders are mostly against it, while those that sell the trademarked items are very for the policy change. In addition, many people feel that Google is doing this to make an extra buck, while some aren't so sure - suggesting that Google may get hit with more lawsuits that might cost more money then allowing the ads in the first place.

What do you think? Take our poll:

Here are some good quotes from the forums:

somebody needs more cash :_)

It makes sense though. We've run into problems with it in the past. I should be able to promote products that I'm authorized to sell by the manufacturer in my ads. If I'm not allowed to sell them, I can't use the term. Seems pretty fair.

I think it's about time. Are the big brands pissed off at all the grocery circulars that use their trademark?

Don't mean to sound like an ass but honestly, why is PPC any different from print, yellow pages, etc.?

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

We know Google allows products in AdWords now and we even know a way to make it happen for your ads.

An anonymous reader just sent me screen captures of Google testing a new way of displaying those products. Here is a cropped version of his screen capture:

Here is a blow up of the AdWords ad:

Versus the current way:

Hitting the plus sign:

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Kurt Krake spotted this on a top premium ad position and sent us this screen capture. Notice, this is for a different advertiser:

Google began aggressively testing the new AdWords interface the other week. I heard many complaints from advertisers on the new AdWords interface, so I figured I would poll our readers to see what their thoughts were. The 144 responses are back and the majority of advertisers prefer the old user interface to the new one.

Here is the breakdown of what advertisers prefer:

:: Old (Current) AdWords Interface said 80 respondents or 56%
:: New (Beta) AdWords Interface said 51 respondents or 35%
:: Neither said 13 respondents or 9%

Like my mother says: You can't always make everyone happy.

Forum discussion continued at Search Engine Watch Forums.

eWhisper, WebmasterWorld moderator said that he sees a new feature in his AdWords account. The new feature allows him to link up his AdWords account with his Analytics account and bring in the tracking conversion data from AdWords directly into Analytics.

eWhisper said:

This feature seems to be about a week old. If you go to Google conversion tracking, there is an option for linking Google analytics goals to count as conversion types.

I personally tried to replicate this, but was unable to. I assume I am having issues linking up my accounts. In any event, here is the help document that explains how to link my Analytics goals and transactions to AdWords Conversion Tracking. I'll repeat those instructions here:

1. Sign into your Google Analytics account.
2. Click "Edit Account and Data Sharing Settings."
3. Make sure you've selected at least the "With other Google products only" options under "Share my Google Analytics data..."
4. Click "Save Changes" to finish.
5. Navigate to the Conversion Tracking page from within your AdWords account. The Conversion Tracking page will show a message alerting you that your goals and tractionsactions are ready to be linked. Please note that it may take up to two weeks for your Analytics data to be imported into AdWords.
6. Click "Link your Analytics goals and transactions" from the Conversion Tracking table.
7. Select the goals or transactions you want from the list. Each listed item will have the Analytics profile name, the type of action (goal or transaction), an editable field for the action name, and pull-down menu for the action's tracking purpose. Edit the action name and tracking purpose here so that you can identify the goals once they show up in your AdWords conversion reports.
8. Select "Link" from the bottom of the table to finish.

AdWords Conversion Tracking will then start importing the data from your Analytics account starting from the day you clicked "Link." Historical data from before this date will not be added to conversion tracking. You will begin to see your goals appear alongside your conversion data in your Conversion Tracking page and AdWords reports after approximately two weeks.

This is an obvious connection Google has made and hopefully this will make the tracking of ROI just a bit easier for AdWords advertisers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Jeffrey Posnick, AdWords API Team posted an announcement in a Google Groups thread about budget optimizer changes that AdWords API users might need to know about. If you are an AdWords API user and you use Budget Optimizer, then you should read this message from Jeff.

Each Campaign object has a budgetOptimizerSettings property, which in turn has a takeOnOptimizedBids setting. Currently, if takeOnOptimizedBids is set to false and you turn off the Budget Optimizer in a campaign, the original bids that were manually set for the ad groups and criteria contained in the campaign will be estored. In other words, the AdWords API will save your old bids from before the Budget Optimizer was turned on, and restore them when it is turned off. If takeOnOptimizedBids is set to true, however, the old bids will not be restored when the Budget Optimizer is turned off. Instead, the last bids that were automatically set by the Budget Optimizer will persist for the ad groups and criteria in your campaign. You can, if you wish, use the AdWords API to manually update the bids for ad groups and criteria once the Budget Optimizer is turned off in either scenario.

The upcoming change will effectively treat takeOnOptimizedBids as if it were set to true (regardless of what it is actually set to) for all campaigns using the Budget Optimizer. Once the Budget Optimizer is turned off, all bids will be set to the last bid used by the Budget Optimizer. This change will match the behavior currently in place when the Budget Optimizer is turned off via the AdWords web interface.

We're planning on making this change to AdWords API behavior on May 19. It is not likely that you will have to make any substantial changes to your code in advance of this change, but please take the new behavior into account when you write code that turns the Budget Optimizer off.

I quoted Jeff's words exactly so that nothing gets lost in the translation.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google has been testing click to call features for a while, but the true value to having Google Audio Ads, which was discontinued recently, was to get the toll free and trackable free phone feature. In fact, many AdWords customers used it to track their campaigns, even without using audio ads.

Since Audio Ads was discontinued, the phone tracking was discontinued as well. As of May 5th, Google has discontinued the service. If you read the Google help page, it reads:

Important news about Google Audio Ads: On February 12, 2009, we announced that Google will discontinue the Audio Ads platform. All audio ads will stop running on May 31, 2009.

Also on this page, it says:

Call reporting numbers are being discontinued in AdWords Business Pages on or shortly after May 5, 2009.

So if you have been using these toll-free numbers, make sure to swap them out to new numbers.

Forum discussion continued at Google AdWords Help and a hat tip to Sam at Oh Nuts.

When Google Ad Planner launched I was really in shock and awe. Google has added a new feature to Google Ad Planner named the Google Ad Planner Publisher Center. It basically gives publishers a way to add more details about their site, so that advertisers can find their sites and better judge the traffic and demographics data of your web site.

To gain access to this, you need to be a publisher and you need to verify your site with Google Ad Planner. There are two ways to verify your site, the details on that is over here, but since I am already verified under Google Webmaster Tools, I can easily add them to Google Ad Planner.

When I logged in, I had no sites in my profile, but since I had sites verified with Google Webmaster Tools, I was able to add them easily to the publisher center:

I clicked on "select sites to include" and was presented with a list of sites I can include:

Then I am presented with an overview and a way to "edit" the information about these sites:

I clicked on edit on one of the sites and the screen looks like this:

Here is also a screen capture of the categories I can add my site to:

For more information about this Google Ad Planner Publisher Center, see the Inside AdSense Blog.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Google AdWords Help thread has a sad story from a new Google advertiser who seemed to have accidently run up a bill from Google that got out of control. On day one, the advertiser set up his/her campaign and came back the next day to check in. What did this advertiser find? A cost of almost $30,000 accured on the campaign over the past 24 hours.

As you can see from this person's post, the person is 100% a newbie when it comes to AdWords/AdSense. Here is the post:

I am very new to this google adsense and posting ads. Last night I wanted to do a “TEST RUN ONLY” for Google to monitor before I could run any ad for my blogger.com. This morning 04/27/2009 I see a cost bill of almost $30,000.00? Oh my GOD, how could this happen? PLEASE HELP! This is a mistake! Please fix this problem and remove this cost of almost $30,000.00 from my account. I don’t have that kind of money. I’m a single mom and I’m not even working. Please help. I look forward to your response to my request.

I wonder how Google will handle this. It seems like this was the mistake of the advertiser and Google technically is not to blame here. But will Google show mercy?

You just have to assume this new advertiser did not set up a budget. How sad.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Since March, we have been reporting about some Google AdWords ads that appear to be displaying above the 25 character title limit. Back in March, I was told by Google that this is a bug, but Google was wrong. At the end of March, I probed Google about this again and Google confirmed, that in some cases, the AdWords title may exceed the 25 title character limit.

A new WebmasterWorld thread brings this topic back to life, where we now have AdWords representatives actually telling advertisers how they can realize longer titles in the AdWords ads. For example, this advertiser wanted to have the title "Virtual Assistant Training," but it is 26 characters. So to get around this, he/she uses dynamic keyword insertion to get there. If you search for Virtual Assistant Training you may see an ad with the full 26 character title. I attached a picture, to prove it.

There are many issues with using dynamic keyword insertion. Specifically the ad simply might not work all the time, plus the title might not always match the ad description, amongst other issues. But it is worth testing this out to see if it leads to any increase in your click through rate and, ultimately, quality score.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google is currently running a survey asking AdWords advertisers if Google show make the Google Advertising Professional exam and certification harder. A Google AdWords Help thread has a post from AdWordsPro Sarah asking AdWords advertisers to take a survey on the Google Advertising Professional certification process.

The survey can be found over here and it asks questions such as:

• Do you think the Google Advertising Professionals exam should be more difficult?
• If you had the option to take a test in these elective subjects, is this something you would be interested in?
• Should the Google Advertising Professionals exam be given in a proctored environment to help control cheating?

There are other questions, but these are the most interesting questions in my opinion.

Should Google have these tests in controlled and proctored class rooms? Are you kidding me?

Anyway, it is important for Google advertisers to take this survey, this way Google knows how to take the future of the Google Advertising Professional program.

Personally, I love the idea of making tests harder, but I am weird.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

A week ago, Google started to seriously push the new AdWords interface onto AdWords advertiser's screens. Many folks have already activated the new user interface, but not all are happy.

I was hoping to poll our audience to see if you like the new or old interface. Please take 10 seconds to complete the anonymous poll and I will post the results in the near future.

Search Engine Watch Forums moderator, Discovery, posted a thread at Search Engine Watch Forums asking if he can switch back to the old interface. His issue with the new user interface?

Today I needed to jump in and make a few quick changes, for whatever reason I didnt fire up AE and logged in instead. The wait between each screenload and for data to appear is painful. Same issue that Yahoo has.

Anyhow, I jumped back to the old interface and felt a warm sense of calm. made the quick changes in a few graceful strokes and clicks... ahhhh. Now I think I'm pretty much decided, I will likely never use the web interface once it has been changed and opt for AE as my primary tool.

Speed is the issue for this advertiser. Again, please take the poll above and ask your advertiser friends to take it as well.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Google released a whitepaper titled "CPA Performance Trends on the Google Content Network." The whitepaper has the following findings, all very positive about how Google AdSense performs:

1. Ads on the Google Content Network are likely to be as cost-effective - or even more cost-effective - than ads on the search network.
   • The median advertiser has a content CPA that's about 2% lower than their search CPA.
2. The Content Network drives a significant share of total conversions.
   • The Content Network drives nearly 20% of total conversions for the median advertiser.
3. Conversion rates are higher for advertisers who used either of two AdWords campaign management controls: the Conversion Optimizer and site exclusion.

Thing is, no one believes the report. A WebmasterWorld thread has real advertisers saying they don't see this in their daily use of Google's content network and this seems to be a Google backed study that would bias the results.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A reader, Brad from Set Solid, sent me new information about Google showing products in AdWords ads. We covered this topic a few times, reporting on seeing such ads in Google several times in the past. Here is a screen shot of the ad:

Well, a reader sent me an email with an image of the Google Base administrative console. In the admin panel, it shows a new link to "Share with AdWords." Here is a screen capture of that section:

If you enter in your AdWords customer ID, it will link up your products with your ads. There is actually a new help document on this at Google. It reads:

You can now specify your AdWords account information in your Google Base account. By doing this, you can surface your Google Base product information in your AdWords ads. AdWords campaigns that are linked to Google Base accounts will receive the benefit of richer, more specific product information in their creatives; including images and prices.

I don't believe there has been an official announcement on this new feature by Google yet. Google has admitted this is a beta test in the past.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

Starting yesterday, many Google AdWords advertisers began noticing a message in the AdWords console asking them to give the new user interface a try. Google began beta testing the new AdWords UI in November 2008 and expanded the beta in March 2009. More recently, they asked advertisers to experiment with the new UI early because it will be here soon.

Well, now it is here and most advertisers can switch over to it. When you login to your AdWords account, you should see a bubble notification that looks like this:

Note, when I upgraded, I was told my browser (Safari 3.2) may not be fully supported and I should use Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 3, or Chrome to manage my campaigns. In any event, you likely can upgrade but before doing so, if you want to learn more about the UI, see this resource for more information.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

A Google AdWords Help thread reports that an AdWords advertiser has been notified that using the word "gay" in his search ads are seen as offensive. This advertiser was offended that Google would consider the word "gay" as offensive. Here is what he said:

I found it very offensive when my ad was flagged for review for having the term "gay" in it. It surprises me that this a part of Google's policy as it is very offensive and homophobic.

Just to clarify: Google's policy is offensive, the term "gay" should NOT be.

With the recent Amazon FAIL over a similar topic, does google also want to be lumped into this mess?

It is well known that Google is very supportive of gay rights, so I was a little skeptical. I tried to create a search ad in Google AdWords myself, and used the word "gay" in the title and description and it worked without an issue. In the case above, it seems like after the ad was already live, Google made a decision to review the ad later. Maybe someone felt his ad was offensive and Google pulled it until it can be manually reviewed? I am not sure, we don't have the official word from Google yet.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Update: Via Twitter @AccuraCast notified me that he has screen shots proving this. Plus @GrosenFriis has a post on this as well.

A couple weeks ago, we polled our audience asking if Google should add time zone preferences to their AdWords feature list.

Yahoo recently launched day parting, but gave advertisers the option to day part based on either the advertiser's time zone or the searcher's time zone. Google AdWords time zone setting is only based on your account's time zone, i.e. the advertiser's time zone. So if you have some one looking for your services and you want to target them based on their time zone and not yours, you are somewhat out of luck in Google AdWords.

I ran a poll asking if advertisers want Google to add this feature and the overwhelming majority of the responses said yes. 88% of advertisers want the feature, 6% said they don't want it and another 6% said they don't care.

Forum discussion continued at Google AdWords Help.

This article was written earlier this week and scheduled to go live April 10th.

ShoeMoney Sues Google Employee For AdWords Violations from TechCrunch shows how Jeremy Schoemaker (aka ShoeMoney) has filed suit against a Google AdWords employee for allegedly bidding on his trademark and possibly for stealing his keywords.

TechCrunch explains that Jeremy found signs that the person who was bidding on his trademark was very friendly with Google employees. In addition, he found that on his LinkedIn profile it said he worked at Google in the AdWords department. TechCrunch said:

At this point it’s still unclear if the violator used his position at Google to bypass its trademarked words filters or to access Schoemaker’s own list of keywords, but at the very least it’s hard to believe the Google employee was unaware that his actions were in violation of Google’s Terms of Service.

I believe this is the first time we are hearing about a case of an SEM (I know Jeremy, you don't like to be called that, but in this case, you are) suing a Google employee for these allegations. It should be interesting following this case.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

A few weeks ago, we reported Google was testing fav icons in AdWords results. The fav icons was a confirmed test by Google, that is still running to this day. In Japan, they seem to be really pumping up this test, by displaying much larger images near the ads.

A WebmasterWorld thread has a member reporting seeing 70x70 images. In fact, I contacted that member, and he posted the details, with screen captures at his blog, which is in Japanese. Here is a screen shot taken from his site:

Compare this with what we are seeing on Google.com, with just fav icons:

Huge difference here, a 16x16 vs a 70x70 image.

Let's not forget Google was also testing favicons in search results, the free, organic results.

For more pictures, check out his blog and you can try to use Google Translate to translate the Japanese to English.

Googler, AdWords Pro, confirmed the fav icon test recently in an Google AdWords Help thread, saying:

Google is always experimenting, and based on the limited information in your post, I believe you may be seeing one such experiment. If so, it is not a test that is generally available to advertisers.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

About a week ago, many Google Analytics users and Google AdWords advertisers began noticing that the AdWords cost data was no longer being sent to the Google Analytics reports. We said that Google sent a warning that this may happen, if you don't link the two accounts.

Googler, AnalyticsPro.Chris, created a new "sticky" thread at Google Analytics Help discussions that talks about this issue.

Chris said:

Going forward, you'll have to tag your URLs and enable cost data to see AdWords data in your Analytics account.

If your accounts stopped receiving AdWords CPC/PPC data around March 23/24, It is possible that it is affected by the cost data changes implemented then. If you are an admin on such an account, you should have received a message, in February, with the subject line: Action required: Important change to AdWords/Analytics cost data

Here's an article explaining the different scenarios: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=57167

So if you have this issue, hopefully this will help you going forward.

Forum discussion at Google Analytics Help.

AdWords API users out there, you may have noticed that Google is returning errors for some of your operations and calls. Reports came in on April 1st at a Google Groups thread, which has been confirmed by Google.

Googler, Jeff Posnick from the AdWords API Team said:

I'm sorry that you're running into this. Our core engineering team has noticed a recent spate of 502 errors in our Production services, and are taking steps to isolate and resolve the problem.

502 "Bad Gateway" errors are most common in our environment when one of our backend servers has trouble communicating with another internal server, and is normally not something that you as an end user can do to avoid. There shouldn't be any connection to whether you're running your code in the debugger or not, though if you code hits a different set of backend servers in between calls you may or may not see the errors.

There have not been many complaints. That can be because of three possible reasons:

1. This is not a major issue and is only impacting a few people.
2. Few people use this feature
3. People have not yet looked at their automated reports to see these errors yet.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

There is a thread at WebmasterWorld and several in the Google Analytics Help forum with complaints that Google Analytics is no longer tracking Google AdWords data properly.

The WebmasterWorld thread has this complaint:

In two of my analytics accounts for sites which I use adwords to drive traffic all of the data is being recorded as direct and not google(cpc)...and it not reporting any traffic from adwords (which my wallet tells my otherwise!)It is only for the past two days including today. Is anyone else seeing this? Is it a glitch?

The simple answer is that in February, Google notified us that we need to link our analytics account to our AdWords accounts to pass this information. So if you have not done so, and your Analytics data is looking a bit empty, go ahead and link up those accounts. Brad has a good post explaining how to link up your accounts.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google Analytics Help.

Google began beta testing a new AdWords interface about 6 months ago. Recently Google expanded that beta test and is going as far to encourage AdWords advertisers to sign up for the beta, in order to get accustomed to it before it becomes the default.

AdWordsPro Sarah said in a Google AdWords Help thread, "everyone's account will migrate to the new interface, so, to make sure you are ready, I highly recommend signing up for the beta test." She also gave us a teaser of what new stuff we can expect:

• Performance graphs: Spot trends over time with custom graphs on every campaign management page.
• Insight across ad groups: Focus on the high-impact areas of your account with new roll-up tabs on every page. You can see and edit keywords, placements or ads from all ad groups on a single tab.
• In-line editing: Want to change a keyword or bid? Click on it and make changes in-line instead of loading a separate page.
• Easier content network management: Improve content network performance through a new Networks tab. Look at statistics for the placements where your ads have appeared, and then take action by setting unique bids or excluding placements directly from the report.

Sarah asked that if you are participating in the beta, you should provide feedback, of all kinds, in this Google AdWords Help thread.

Ready or not, here it comes.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

A DigitalPoint Forum thread has a collection of "weird" or "funny" ads people spotted through Google AdSense or AdWords. I thought I share them in text format, but feel free to see the thread to see screen captures.

• AdSense shows ads on a skydiver accident for American Airline with the slogan, "we know why you fly."
• AdWords shows ads for Big Daddy and Big Juicy Butts
• AdWords ads for used toilet paper
• Hillary Clinton Naked ads?
• Amazon selling "human remains."
• A search for world of warcraft showing an ad for virgin males (I guess that makes sense)
• You can visit hell on ebay
• Or sell your kids on ebay

Feel free to add more to the forum.

Forum discussion and pictures at DigitalPoint Forum.

A Sphinn thread reports that in some cases, unpausing a campaigns in an AdWords account can even activate campaigns that have been deleted.

Gab Goldberg summarized the story, saying:

Google AdWords ripped off this firm for $3200! When they restarted paused campaigns by clicking 'resume all,' Google also resumed deleted campaigns, with all adgroups and ads deleted too!

Several AdWords advertisers said they have seen this happen to them in the past. It just sounds like a major bug to me and I don't see how this can go unnoticed for too long. As AdWords accounts age, some campaigns must be deleted. Often campaigns are paused for one reason or another and when they are unpaused, you can risk being charged for deleted campaigns as well.

This seems like a serious concern to me.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Last week, Yahoo announced enhancements to their search marketing platform. Part of that announcement was that they added the day parting option, giving advertisers the ability to say they want to show their ads on specific days and different times or even increase their bids at different times.

The one option Yahoo has added that the other engines do not have, is that they give you the ability to specify if you would like the day parting settings to be based on your time zone or the searcher's time zone. I was fairly confident that Google set it based on you (the advertiser's) time zone.

I confirmed that today by asking that question in a Google AdWords Help thread. The response lead me to a answer at Google help that read:

Ad scheduling for your AdWords campaigns is based on the time zone you have set for your account. Your ad will appear during the hours shown in your account -- not in the time zone of the regions you have targeted.

For example: Assume your account time zone is set for Amsterdam, but your ads are targeted to Bangkok, six hours ahead. When you schedule your ads to run from 1:00 until 3:00 pm, the ads will run from 1:00 until 3:00 pm Amsterdam time. That means that in Bangkok, six hours ahead, they will be running from 7:00 until 9:00 pm.

So there you have it. Even features such as day parting can get very granular in its targeting options. Google doesn't give you the detailed level of control Yahoo gives you, but do advertisers need it?

Here is a poll, let us know what you think:

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Yesterday we reported that there was an Google AdWords API Usage Reporting Glitch. In short, Google wasn't telling AdWords API users how many API calls they were making, and since Google charges some advertisers for API calls, it can become an issue.

Google confirmed the issue in a Google Groups thread. Jeff Posnick from AdWords API Team said the issue is now resolved but there was an hour of API call usage Google seemed to have lost. Due to the data loss, Google cannot charge for that usage. Here is what Jeff said:

To update the thread: there was an issue that prevented AdWords API usage information from being updated following the scheduled downtime on March 14. For a few days after there was a backlog of usage info, and both the display in the AdWords web interface and the count returned via the InfoService was out of date. The engineering team believes that this issue is resolved now, and that the underlying circumstances leading to it should not recur.

They did identify a window of about an hour on March 14 for which they were not able to retrieve usage information, and any calls made during that window of time will not incur any charges (nor will they be reflected in the InfoService or the web interface's usage count). However, this window took place during the scheduled downtime, so there should have been only a small amount of traffic that got through during that time.

This likely only impacts a smaller percentage of our readers, but this seemed interesting enough to post about.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

There are two different threads at WebmasterWorld that show publishers, advertisers and affiliate's concern over a new proposed tax law in California.

The law, as understood in the thread, would potentially tax any seller who using AdWords to market their product or service. Moderator, incrediBILL, explained:

The conclusion I drew after reading the law is that since AdSense directly refers customers via links, as do the AdWords ads showing in the SERPs, it's therefore theoretically possible that anyone using Google as an advertising vehicle could be subject to CA tax.

If people advertising in Google are suddenly subject to collecting and paying CA tax then people will most likely stop advertising on Google.

You can see the details about this tax proposal named AB178 and the hearing won't be until April 13, 2009.

Some are very skeptical over the bill and they are not worried too much about how it might impact them.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: 5 Star Affiliate Blog has very good coverage of this concern. Well worth a read.

There are reports in the Google AdWords API Google Groups that the Google AdWords API is reporting inaccurate data from the usage tool.

First reports came in on March 19th, where an AdWords API user said:

We have just rolled out an application using API and the Unit Usage from 3 days ago is not showing up. It says on the page where this is viewed that it is updated daily. Anyone know whats going on there? Have we not been charged?

In short, Google charges for certain level of usage for the API. AdWords API users keep track of their usage reporting to stay on top of costs. The usage reporting seems to not be updating correctly and costs are hard to control without that reporting.

Jeff Posnick from the Google AdWords API Team said:

I have a bug open with the engineering team to determine whether there was some underlying problem that prevented the display in the web interface from being updated. Hopefully if there is a problem we can get it resolved so that no further confusion ensues.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Yesterday, for the second time this month, we reported that Google's Keyword Tool Getting To Broad. I guess it is the time of the month where SEMs do their keyword research because many more threads popped up on this issue over the passed few days.

The official Google AdWords representative updated several threads complaining about the issue saying it is a bug. The representative said:

A bit of asking around tells me that what is being reported here is a technical issues known to the engineering folks, and not an intentional change.

As you will probably imagine, Engineering aims to resolve things as quickly as possible.

I am sorry to say that I don't have an estimated time-to-resolution - and I will exercise my better judgment and not even guess. I will, however, happily update this thread a couple of hours after I've heard that it is resolved.

In the meantime, please accept both my apology for the inconvenience, and my thanks in advance for your patience.

Forum discussion continued at Google AdWords Help, WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: Hours later, some are reporting seeing the keyword tool looking better. AdWords representative updated the thread saying:

To set reasonable expectations, though, I hear some finishing touches will take through early-to-mid next week. So if anyone sees anything thing odd, hang in there.

Threads at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums have webmasters complaining about Google's keyword tool. The complaint is that the keyword suggestions are too broad.

Here is one of the reports:

Anyone notice more broad terms being included in their adwords keyword tool searches? It used to group related keywords at the top of the results and list more broad/related terms below. I just noticed them all mixed together...not sure if it's a glitch or one of their tweaks.

For example, I did a lookup on the keyword [ipods] and Google gave me suggestions such as [wholesale], [deals], [free], [best price] and so on.

Webmasters and advertisers are hoping that this is some type of bug or glitch that will go away soon.

I'm really hoping this is a bug, not a change. The tool is pretty much worthless in its current state. I think it might be a bug since some keyword phrases still get divided into two lists the way it should be.

I have a feeling this might be related to what the API users were seeing a couple weeks ago.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Watch Forums.

Update: Google Confirms Keyword Tool Issue is a Bug.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread has discussion over a new trademarked term that made it into Google's trademark policy list. The word is "MySQL" and is the name of one of the more popular open source database systems.

Yesterday, I received an email that one of my demo ads (wasn't live anyway) was disapproved due to trademark violations. I read it, thought to myself, no big deal and trashed the email. But some are upset. Showing an ad for MySQL does help promote the brand in many ways. For example, if you are a developer that specializes in MySQL, then putting ads out there for that term, might benefit both parties. If you are a development company looking to hire MySQL engineers (like we are), then that also promotes and helps the MySQL company.

That being said, the easy way around it is to just drop of the "My" from the "SQL" in the ad copy and you would be set. Clearly, it won't help brand the database company, but that is their call.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Friday, we reported at Search Engine Land that Google is testing favicons (the icons you see in the URL bar) in Google AdWords ads. The test seems to be limited to the European market. Here is a screen shot taken from one of our members at Search Engine Roundtable Forums:

Notice the bottom two ads on the right have little icons on the left of the display URL. Those icons seem to be from the favicon.ico file on those respective sites. For example, eBay's is at ebay.com/favicon.ico.

There are several members reporting seeing this at WebmasterWorld and one at Search Engine Roundtable Forums. In fact, one received confirmation from his AdWords representative that this is something Google is testing on a very limited closed beta. Kerstin, who posted this, said:

Spoke to our AM at Google this morning, they've confirmed that they're testing. It's limited (for both advertisers and searchers) and closed.

What was interesting was just a few months ago, Google was testing favorite icons in the search results, the free listings.

It seems like if you are in the UK area, you may stumble across this test every now and then.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Just a heads up to you Google AdWords API users. If you are running development tests off Google's sandbox environment, do not that it is having technical issues for the past day or two.

A Google Groups thread has confirmation of the issue by Google's Jeff Posnick.

Jeff Posnick said:

The engineering team is working to resolve what is believed to be the cause of this Sandbox issue. Without getting into too many details, they'll be addressing a database-related issue that seems to have cropped up in a recent deployment of the Sandbox servers. I don't have an ETA for when this will be completed, but will update the group with any additional information as it becomes available.

It does not seem to be fixed yet, so just hang tight and keep watching the thread.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Update: It should have been back up as of 2:30pm today. Jeff updated the thread saying:

Yes, there was just an update made a few minutes ago that will hopefully restore functionality for most of our users. However, my understanding is that there is another change that the engineering team still needs to push out a bit later today, so I don't want to say that things are completely stable until that's complete.

Over the weekend, I heard some reports of issues with Google's keyword tool. I received a Twitter from @dalka, I spotted a Google Groups thread from the AdWords API forum and a Google AdWords Help forum thread with complaints.

They all surround the keyword tool, both via the API and via the external web based tool. Jeff Posnick from the AdWords API Team said:

Fresh search volume data is currently being pushed out and replicated globally, and the engineering team believes that the sporadic -1 results you were seeing is a side-effect of that process. Once it is complete there should be up to date data available globally. They mentioned that you should check again on Monday to confirm this.

AdWordsPro Stephen, an official Google representative said:

It sounds like the AdWords system is reacting to receiving many requests from you in a very short time. Using scripts or 'screenscrapers' to gather data from AdWords is a violation of the AdWords terms and conditions, and there are some automated monitors that enforce this.

There does seem to be minor issues with the tool, so be on the look out if you are using any of these tools today.

Forum discussion at Google Groups and Google AdWords Help.

Rimm-Kaufman posted data that shows how their are less people searching for products and services to buy, leading to less sales, which impacts the overall PPC budgets. Yes, all related to this global recession.

I laid out the key points in my Search Engine Land brief:

• Approximately 20% reduction in sales from search ads from last year
• Approximately 20% reduction in his costs from search ads from last year
• The average order value from search ads dropped 10% from last year
• The conversion rate from search ads seemed to remain stable from last year
• There may be more competition in the space, but hard to prove

One advertiser noticed this himself and posted a question at Google AdWords Help asking if others noticed this. The only response we have so far is from a Google representative, AdWordsPro, who wouldn't comment about what Google has seen.

Advertisers, take the anonymous poll and let us know if less people are searching and clicking on your ads.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

There is an interesting thread at WebmasterWorld forums on the topic of saving Google AdWords accounts. You know how Google has this quality score component to AdWords? ;-) Well, sometimes an ad or ad group or account has a very low quality score, making your cost per click prices soar. Some call this the Google Slap.

That being said, if the quality score gets really bad, is it ever worth ditching the account and starting fresh?

eWhisper, WebmasterWorld moderator, said that in "almost every case, an account can be 'saved'." Saving your account might be time consuming, but it seems like the general consensus is that it is almost always worth saving the account, as opposed to starting new.

How exactly can you save a 'lost' AdWords account? Well, I'll leave those details to the thread.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Over the past couple months, I have been seeing thread after thread from AdWords advertisers with complaints that their competitors are showing over the 25 character limit in the Google AdWords title of the ad.

Google says there is a max 25 character limit for the title, including spaces. But advertiser after advertiser have been posting in the forums, with complaints that advertisers are using more than that 25 character limit.

A month or so ago, I sent this information to Google asking if there was a policy change. Google told me, no, this must have been a bug of some sort. A Google spokeswoman told me, "We haven't changed our AdWords policy regarding the number of characters allowed in the title line."

So why is it still happening? I know, when I upload my SEO videos to YouTube sometimes they enforce their title word limit and sometimes they don't.

I am not sure what is wrong with Google AdWords, but something is for sure up. Maybe these are getting by through AdWords Editor, maybe through the API, maybe through the standard interface or maybe through dynamic keyword insertion - I am not sure.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and Google AdWords Help.

Update: This appears to not be a bug, I have more details at Get Longer Google AdWords Titles Through Dynamic Keyword Insertion.

There is an important change coming up for those Google AdWords users who use Google Analytics to track their campaigns. Brad posted this information yesterday, but just in case you missed it, here it is again.

This is the email being sent to those that are impacted by this change. But I am concerned that not everyone who would be impacted by the change received the email, so here it is:

On March 4th, we will be updating how Google Analytics imports AdWords data to improve security and provide greater control and convenience. This update will require that your AdWords and Analytics accounts are linked and that you have "Apply Cost Data" selected. We are proactively notifying Administrators of Analytics accounts that will be affected by this change (you either have auto-tagging enabled and/or have a linked account without cost data applied to some or all of your profiles).

If you are receiving AdWords traffic (e.g. Visits), but the AdWords reports in Google Analytics do not contain impression or click data (e.g. CPC, Impressions, ROI), then it is likely that AdWords and Analytics are not linked or the cost data option is turned off for that profile. The cost data import option is selected by default when linking your accounts; however, new profiles created after the linking process may not have cost data implemented.

There is a Google AdWords Help thread with additional instructions on how to link your accounts, if you need to take this action.

AdWordsPro Stephen explained that this change is being done for security reasons.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Outstanding news for marketers of all kinds, Google has quietly opened up Google Ad Planner to everyone, or at least, that is what it seems. Go to google.com/adplanner and give it a try, you should be able to sign in with your Google Account and agree to the terms of service and then start using this incredibly robust and powerful tool.

Google launched Ad Planner in June 2008 as an invite only program. I was privileged to be included in this release and I provided detailed screen captures of Ad Planner in action. Take a quick look, the data is amazing.

Like I said above, all marketers, including search marketers, print marketers, water marketers :) need to check this out.

Again, go to google.com/adplanner now and give it a try.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: It has been open since November. I am sorry, I should have known this, we blogged it at Search Engine Land.

We reported earlier that Google AdWords is sunsetting the AdWords API version 12 on February 23, 2009. Google has been forced to extend that deadline to March 9th, due to the Perl library not being updated until recently.

The Perl library is managed by a third-party, outside of Google and it just took him extra time (of his free time) to get this done. So, Google decided to push off the deadline to March 9th, to give people a chance to update their applications. The Perl library is now updated and can be read about at this thread.

Jeff Posnick of the Google AdWords API Team warns that version 14 will "contain numerous fundamental changes. All of the client libraries will need significant updates to support the next release." So be prepared.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

By nature, people are often more likely to write a complaint about something than to write a positive letter of encouragement for a job well done. I recently spotted a positive note left by a Google advertiser in the Google AdWords Help forum and I thought it would be nice of us to highlight this thread.

The advertiser was basically commenting on the topic of click fraud and how he/she feels Google is doing a great job on quality of the ads and the quality of the leads generated through the ads. Let me quote that post here:

Amidst all of the angst on the forum, I want to give them their props for keeping the fraudulent clicks to a minimum. I've been very impressed with my latest round of ads, even exploring their content network--which I was reluctant to do after trying it with a different provider-- and so far I have no complaints about the quality of the clicks.

A 2 minute post like that can really brighten up the day for some of the people who work so hard at Google to make a good product for advertisers.

Kudos to Google and to their advertisers!

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

I often see a post here or there, on a daily basis, of an AdWords advertiser complaining their quality score has significantly dropped and they have been "Google Slapped." But in the past few days, I have seen an influx of these types of posts. So I suspect a new quality score algorithm was pushed through that Google did not deem significant enough to mention on their blog, but which did have significant impact on many advertisers.

We have two new threads that have complaints from advertisers. One is at DigitalPoint Forums and the other is at WebmasterWorld. Here are some isolated posts from those threads:

I have woken up today to find 2 very profitable campaigns with no sales. So after checking google adwords it looks like someone has done some sort of manual review of my site or something as all my major campaigns have either got:

9/10 quality scores click through rate of around 2% but getting hit with £2 bids on a niche that has been operating fine for the past few months.

On the other main campaign I have quality scores of 1/10 for almost all keywords dispite prior to this 4-5%ctr ads and landing page optimised for the terms I am targeting.

A lot of our keywords have dropped QS from 8ish down to 1/10.

The diagnostics say that the ads and ad text are fine but landing page needs improving. Google have told me lots of times before that the site is great so a bit confused.

Hopefully you were not hit by this latest slap.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums and WebmasterWorld.

A search in Google News for santa cruz storm brough up a fake Google News item via the Google AdWords ads for some searchers. Here is a picture sent to me by a reader:

Google started showing ads in news results a while back. One advertiser tried to use this as a way to scare people around the world, by saying the new United States President, Barack Obama, was killed. Clearly, that is not true. Here is the ad copy, if you cannot make it out from the image above:

Latest NEWS President OBAMA was KILLED Potential killer is Russian Spy www.lolnews.usnewnews.com

I personally did not see this ad and I am glad it was removed. But clearly, this leaves Google open to a whole new level of spam and hate ads.

Why now? Maybe because it is President's Day?

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

According to a DigitalPoint Forums thread, Google has updated their AdWords policy to require that all ringtone ads contain pricing details directly in the ad copy.

I tried to find any official updated documentation from Google on this new policy, but was unable to do so. Thus, this is not confirmed yet by Google but honestly, it would not surprise me, if this was indeed a new policy.

The email received by this advertiser was:

"...we will require text and image ads for these services to display the price and billing interval (such as per week or per month) in the ad text, e.g., '$5.99/month.' We will no longer accept text or image ads that don't contain the price and billing interval when promoting mobile content services..."

As you can imagine, some ringtone advertisers are upset about this policy change. Supposedly, all ads without this that advertise for ringtones, will be rejected.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Over the weekend, there were hundreds of posts and dozens of threads with complaints from both Google AdWords advertisers and Google AdSense publishers. The complaints were that the reports were not being updated. Google has confirmed the issue in Google AdWords Help discussions area saying:

• There was a stats issue in the Ads system that affected stats related to Adwords and AdSense.
• The issue started at roughly 4AM PST on Sat 2/14/09 and lasted several hours.
• The issue only affected stats and reporting. AdServing was not affected and all ads continued to run as normal.
• Account access was normal during this time.
• AdWords engineers are working to get all stats back online/up-to-date ASAP. The update process has started.
• No stats have been lost
• It is anticipated that by the end of today all basic stats at the Adgroup, Campaign, and Account level will be current.
• Advanced stats such as Product Placement Reports and Query reports for Friday, Saturday, Sunday are anticipated to be available by Tuesday 2/17/09

Like I said, there is a lot of discussion around this issue. Here are the threads:

• Alert: Account stats were delayed Saturday, February 14, 2009, Google AdWords Help
• Adsense on Valentines Day, DigitalPoint Forums
• Adwords Drop. Is anyone else seeing this?, Search Engine Watch Forums
• Are everyone's stats really lagged right now?, WebmasterWorld
• Saturday Feb 14th stats stuck, WebmasterWorld
• Stats stuck?, DigitalPoint Forums

I am shocked to see this! Google seems to be testing part of SearchWiki, Google's way of promoting and removing results, to be spotted in the AdWords or sponsored ads section of the Google search results. Some people are noticing the X icon, which allows searchers to delete results from Google, in the sponsored listings.

Here is a picture from Rehan via WebmasterWorld:

Why am I surprised to see this on the AdWords results? Well, one, I was surprised to see them on the main results for all Google users. Second reason, these are paid ads. But I guess they can use the feedback as part of the overall quality score.

Got that? Quality score metric. A new way to perform competitive sabotage on the Google ads. Well, not yet at least.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: Here is a statement I received from a Google spokesperson:

As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation, we are currently running an experiment in which users can customize the ads that appear in the "Sponsored Links" section of the search results page by deleting ad results. This experimental feature is only visible to a small number of users, and we have no news to announce at this time regarding developments in our AdWords product offering.

I spotted an interesting exchange of words in a Google AdWords Help forum thread. An AdWords advertiser who had his account suspended due to terms of service violations asked if there was a way to reverse that.

Google's AdWordsPro Sarah had a pretty strong response. Let me quote her:

To be honest, its really hard to reactivate an account that is suspended because Google reserves the right to permanently terminate all AdWords activity if you ever violate the Terms and Conditions. If I were you, I would pursue other advertising channels.

Now, I don't know the details of this specific suspension, but in general, don't you think Google should be more open to this? I mean, don't most people deserve a second chance?

This advertiser was told to "pursue other advertising channels," now that is a bold comment. Personally, I find it a bit cool that Google would say that, but that is me.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Google started testing audio ads back in December 2006. In May 2007, they launched it to the masses and we saw some early feedback on those ads.

But yesterday, we got news that Google will discontinue those ads and will likely fire the team of 40 people in that group.

Since the announcement, we saw at least two sad advertisers. In two Google AdWords Help Threads we saw complaints that Google dropped the program.

In fact, one person noticed something was wrong before the announcement when he said that he wasn't receiving any estimates from stations anymore. A Google representative was just as surprised to hear the news, saying:

Yes - I just learned of this today, myself. I would want Kathy to note, though, that ads will continue to run through the end of May.

It is sad to see things fail, but Google should focus on what they do best.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help Threads.

A HighRankings Forum thread has discussion around a topic I have never seen before. Should you ever consider using abbreviations in a title or description of your search ads? Here is the question from the advertiser:

I'm writing a PPC headline and would like to know about abbreviating a word in the title instead of spelling it out completely.

For example; 'flr' instead of 'floor'...Reason is to save space in order to fit copy all on one line.

I would say that this would be a no no, in this case. But in some cases, you might be able to pull it off. Stock symbols work in many cases, some abbreviations are really well known, such as FYI.

The issue isn't with Google not allowing it but your CTR dropping due to people not understanding your ad. If your CTR drops, your quality score may drop and it may result in paying more for a ad position you would have otherwise paid less for. Plus, often, a lower CTR leads to less sales.

But as nethy said, it is something you can experiment with and see if it works for your campaigns. Just watch it carefully and be ready to pull the plug if you notice a drop in your metrics.

Forum discussion at HighRankings Forum.

Disgruntled Google AdWords advertisers noticed a few days ago that Google automatically turned on "automatic matching" on their campaigns. The first reports seem to have come in at WebmasterWorld on Thursday.

Here is one post showing their distaste for such a finding:

I just noticed Automatic matching total/Enabled/no clicks or impressions at the bottom of my keyword stats and I am not happy.

It turned out to be a bug that Google fixed a couple of days later. Google issued this statement to concerned advertisers:

Due to a bug in our AdWords interface which surfaced early this morning Pacific Time, you may have seen a message indicating that Automatic Matching was enabled in your account even though you had not turned it on. This message was added to some accounts by mistake and the error will be corrected today. No charges to any advertiser will result. We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.

This was handled very well by Google, even though they seem to be spewing bugs out all over the place these days.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In the Google AdWords forum, Google posts various tips every couple weeks or so. The latest tip, I found to be very interesting and thought some of our readers would benefit from it. It is on the topic of how to maximize your visibility on low traffic keywords.

AdWordsPro Sarah who posted the tip first recommended trying to utilize the content network. She said the content network saying, you "have an understanding of the type of people you are targeting, and like all of the types of advertising, you find a place they are bound to visit and place an ad there."

But what about tips for those low traffic keywords in the search network? She offers three useful and important tips. Let me quote them:

1. Start Small. The knee jerk reaction is to throw a million keywords at the wall and see what sticks. The problem with this is that it is hard to manage this many keywords. A keyword may have terrible performance, but it gets lost in the crowd and you may never notice. Its fine to use the 'throw and stick' method, but I like to throw small batches of keywords at the wall so I can carefully monitor their performance.
2. Delete Delete Delete. If you test a large number of keywords and they don't perform well, they start to drag down your account Quality Score. And, to make matter worse, having a low account Quality Score, makes it harder to introduce new keywords (they tend to start with a lower Quality Score in a low Quality account). To avoid this, I recommend that low performing keywords be deleted immediately. If you have 100-200 impressions and no clicks, its time to think about deleting. If you have 200-300, it really is time. Advertisers tend to think if they wait just a little longer, a click will come. However, while they wait, the keyword drags down the account. If you want to test a lot of keywords, you have to be willing to give the non performers the ax.
3. Go Local. If you think your product might appeal to a local audience (a new umbrella hat- why not target Seattle), you can use location targeting to help get your ad in front of the right people. If you can't rely on the search as heavily, you need to think about all of the other tools that are available for targeting. Who would want this product? Where do they live? When are they online? If you think your target audience is suburban moms, you might want to stay out of the city and try scheduling your ads during the day when the are at home.

The discussion around these tips is just getting started.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

This is a warning to anyone still using version 12 of the Google AdWords API. Google has announced in a Google Groups thread, amongst other places, that they will stop supporting it on February 23, 2009.

AdWords API version 13 has been available since October and if you have not yet upgraded, it is time to do so now.

Jeff Posnick from the Google API team said, "the latest versions of the publicly available official Google client libraries all support version 13 of the API, so if you're using one of those, please check the relevant README file for information on how to switch from version 12 to 13." However, the Perl version is not maintained by Google and the third party developer has not yet upgraded it. Google has confirmed that it will be upgraded before the sunset date.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Conduct a Google search for mens or luggage or hard drives and you might see, like I see, in the AdWords are a plus sign for "show products from [site name]." Here is one of the examples:

When you click the plus sign, you get this:

The same shows up on the right hand side of the search results for many other keywords. I believe the requirement is that you be an advertiser at Google and have product in Google Base/Shopping.

Now, Google has been testing this since November 2007 and continued the tests again in January 2008 but now it seems to be showing up for many searches and for many searchers. So this might not be a test anymore, this might be the new standard to make the ads more interactive and possibly more useful.

I am not sure if clicking on a product link will cost the advertiser money, I would assume it would, but I have not confirmed this.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and thank you Nick for pinging me on this.

Google sent me a comment on this matter:

As part of our ongoing commitment to innovation and helping users find the information they're looking for online, we are testing a feature called the AdWords Product PlusBox, intended to help make information about specific products more easily accessible. For ads associated with products in Google Base, a plusbox can be expanded to display relevant products from that advertiser. The plusbox provides users with more information about an advertiser's offering even before clicking on the ad, and offers advertisers a new way to engage potential customers. This feature is currently in a limited beta with a small number of advertisers.

A Google AdWords Help thread has a short question and short answer on how to deal with slanderous or negative Google ads about an individual or company.

The question was, "How do you remove a false statement posted about an individual?" AdWordsPro Sarah explained that in these cases, you need to fill out a Google AdWords feedback form. Once you submit the form, Google will have someone manually review the ad and take action, if necessary.

Sarah explained, Google's "policy team will manually review the ad and pull it down if it is not meeting any of our guidelines."

Now, negative or slanderous search results that are not ads are harder to deal with.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

A reader, Kasia Bauer, informed me that Google AdWords is testing out a new tool to expand the Google diagnoses or analysis tool. Typically, if you want to see the quality factors of a keyword, you hover your mouse over each keyword and it will show you some details, where you can then click to drill down into more details. This is a keyword, by keyword activity.

The way this is currently done, is by hovering your mouse over the magnifying glass. Here is a picture:

But what if you wanted a report for all the keywords in your campaign? Google seems to be testing that now. Here are screen captures from our reader that demonstrate this new feature (that I currently do not see):

I can see this being useful for larger campaigns that you want a snap shot review of.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

On Sunday, we reported that Google will now be requiring one domain per ad group as part of their new display URL policy in the AdWords program. In short, what this means is that you cannot advertiser for rustybrick.com and seroundtable.com in the same AdWords ad group.

We were unable to confirm that this change is indeed going to happen until today. AdWordsAdvisor in that WebmasterWorld thread confirmed the change by saying:

I can confirm that there is a change coming up, the intent of which is to make sure users are sent to the site to which they expect to be sent.

That said, I am so far behind in general (which, by the way, also accounts for my less than sterling attendence in the forum the past week and more) that I am not yet up-to-speed on the details.

I will look into it and post again later. To set reasonable expectations, it is not likely to be earlier than late in the day tomorrow (Friday) - just looking at what I've got to get done before I can even start digging into it.

My apology for not having a concise answer, right now.

So if you are very interested in these details, I would visit WebmasterWorld again later today.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: On February 20, 2009, Google posted a blog post once again confirming this change and sharing that this will be going into affect the week of February 24, 2009.

Confirmed reports at a Google AdWords Help thread show that if you use the XML format for Google AdWords reports, you will be missing decimal values in the report.

The advertiser who reported this noticed the discrepancy when he generate duplicate reports, one in Excel format and one is XML format. The advertiser said:

When I generate reports in excel format, I get the right number for avg cpc with decimasl, and when I generate an xml format it gives me a different one without the decimal. e.g. In Excel it is avgcpc = 1.50 while in XML avgcpc= 1478393. I think there is a bug in the reports when converted to XML format.

AdWordsPro Stephen confirmed the issue and said he will follow up on why this is the case and let us know if it is a bug or a 'feature.'

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

Back in November 2008, we reported Google was testing a new AdWords interface. It seems like we are getting more reports from blogs and WebmasterWorld that more advertisers are now able to see this new interface.

It is an opt in feature, where Google is asking some of their advertisers if they would like to participate in the new interface.

Tim Cohn posted some additional screen captures at his blog, taking you through some of the new features and sleeker designs and reports.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

An advertiser notes in a WebmasterWorld thread that Google's Learning Center module has an interesting piece of content, under the section 3D, Targeting/Keyword Targeting. It said:

Note: Partner sites don't recognize keyword matching options. Therefore, all keywords on these sites are treated as broad-matched keywords.

This means, that when AOL displays Google AdWords ads on AOL Search, they might not listen to if you want to only show an ad for blue shoes, as opposed to red shoes. As you can imagine, this really got many advertisers worried.

The original poster brought this to the attention of his Google representative, who told him, that note needs to be clarified. He basically said, match types do apply to the search network, including search partners, but does not include the content network.

So match type controls do not make a difference on the content network, but they do make a difference on the search network and search partners.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In October, we reported that both InsideAdWords & Microsoft adCenter are Twittering. But it now seems like more Google AdWords representatives have joined the Twitter bandwagon.

Both AdWordsPro Sarah & AdWordsPro Stephen are now on Twitter. You can follow them at:

• http://twitter.com/AdWordsProSarah
• http://twitter.com/AdWordsHelper

Sarah is Sarah and AdWordsHelper is Stephen. Welcome to Twitter guys!

Why should you care? Well, if you are an advertiser, you may be able to ask direct questions to these Googlers and you may be able to pick up new tricks and tips for your campaigns.

Oh and don't forget, this blog is on Twitter at http://twitter.com/seroundtable and I am personally at Twitter at http://twitter.com/rustybrick, so follow us as well.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

A Google AdWords Help thread is a myth busting thread on the topic of blacklisting AdWords campaigns. Two Google representations confirm that Google will not blacklist or ban AdWords campaigns due to have a low or poor quality score.

One advertiser asked, "Can your account be "blacklisted" in regards to the Quality Score of the Landing Page?"

This might be considered a popular myth. Why? Well, if a campaign or keyword has a low quality score, it may feel like you have been blacklisted. But your ads won't show or your bids will skyrocket not due to being blacklisted but more due to having a poor quality score.

Both AdWords representatives gives more advice on how to improve your quality score in the thread.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

A pulled WebmasterWorld thread has reports from some advertisers that Google is sending out notifications to them that they have changed their display URL policy again. This change is that you can have only one display URL domain in an ad group. So you can not have a display URL for www.seroundtable.com and www.rustybrick.com in the same ad group, according to this policy.

I have not seen confirmed reports of this email, but they are floating around the forums and blogs. Here is a copy of the email text:

In an effort to provide more relevant results and a higher quality experience for our users, we have made the decision to no longer allow multiple domains within a single ad group. Going forward, all display URLs within an ad group must be for the same top-level domain. Please note that this amendment to our policy applies to all advertisers, regardless of previous exceptions or acceptability of any campaigns. While we understand there are legitimate use-cases for multiple domains within one ad group, we ask that separate ad groups are created for any given domain.

For instructions on editing your display URL, please see https://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6272&hl=en_US

Please know that we will not be retroactively disapproving ads until the end of February. Please aim to make the changes before then.

The WebmasterWorld is on hold, likely due to a copy and paste of an email. But it might be activated soon and we can get more of an idea on the legitimacy of these reports.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: We received confirmation that this will indeed be happening.

Update 2: On February 20, 2009, Google posted a blog post once again confirming this change and sharing that this will be going into affect the week of February 24, 2009.

We have been covering the consequences of a site getting hacked from the SEO perspective, time and time again. See our hack tag for more articles on that. But it also may impact your Google AdWords campaign.

A AdWords Help thread has discussion that an advertiser noticed his campaigns were stopped and his account looked to be suspended.

An official Google representative, AdWordsPro Sarah, said the account was not suspended but rather "under review." Soon after the webmaster cleaned up the hack, Google reinstated the site both in the organic listings and the paid listings.

But between the time the hack hurt both the paid and free listings, it was a very helpless feeling for the site owner.

Forum discussion at AdWords Help.

Since 2005, we have reported signs of Google placing ads on their image search service. In May 2008, Google said they would run ads on image search and then signs of text ads on image search back in December. But it has really not stuck and people saw the ads on and off.

I think for the first time, we are now seeing ads for many queries in image search. Here are some examples of Google showing text ads in image search. I believe you can reproduce this yourself:

+ ipods:

+ computers:

+ ford mustang:

Many other keywords all seem to work, such as blood pressure, gloves, baskets and even seo or buy text ads.

The big question is, can advertisers opt out of showing their ads on Google images?

So it looks like they are now here to stay.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

There is an interesting paid search thread over at WebmasterWorld on the topic of using match types. For newbies, match types basically give you the ability to tell how specific or broad you want Google to match your keywords. So if you want Google to show your ad for the keyword phrase blue widget, and variations of it, like big widget that is blue, you use a specific match type. For more on how match types work, see this help document.

That being said, Google is now recommending that you do not list out multiple match types for keyword phrases. Typically, an advertiser might target several keywords, but be very specific on those keywords. So what Google seems to not want you to do these days is add all of the following to your keyword list, but instead decide to go all broad or all narrow.

Example:
'blue widget'
[blue widget]
[widget blue]
[big blue widgets]
and so on

Senior member, bcc1234, said he got word from Google that "they discourage the use of the same keyword with multiple match types." He explained, that "instead of triples of all keywords, they want advertisers to go from "broad" to "narrow" (in their words)." He thinks this makes sense, why?

It actually makes sense to some degree. But I'm guessing they are trying to cut down on the total number of keywords in their system. I imagine with millions of advertisers, and lots of them uploading hundreds of thousands of keywords in dozens of accounts, it really becomes a saleability issue.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Advertisers sometimes fret about each and every click they get on their search ads. Some clicks cost a few pennies, while others can go well over $10 or more per click. In these recessionary times, each click really matters. It shows, I have been seeing more threads about how is each click calculated more often now, then ever.

For example, one advertiser was worried that Google or their bots were clicking on his/her ads. He/She was worried that those clicks would deplete the budget and cost them more money to advertise.

To calm the anxiety, AdWordsPro replied to the AdWords Help thread and said:

To set your mind, you will not be charged for any click that comes from a Google IP address. This includes clicks from Google employees who manually review ads and site, etc.

Now, what about all those Googlers who work from home? I guess they are in the VPN.

Forum discussion at AdWords Help.

About a week ago, we broke the news that Google AdWords has a voting tool to allow advertisers vote on the most important features they want added to Google AdWords. It has been a week and now that many votes are in. AdWordsPro Sarah posted the top two requests:

1. To be able to set different bids on Search Partners for my adwords campaigns!
2. Give advertisers more control over broad matches. Specifically, give them the option to turn off expanded broad matches. This could be a campaign level setting.

These two requests are great ideas, but if you want your idea to be on the list, head over to the AdWords Wish List and add or vote for your ideas.

This is a great way for Google to organize what they think advertisers really want and thus prioritize feature requests.

Forum discussion at AdWords Help group.

We have confirmed reports of Google beta testing a new AdWords budgeting option. The budgeting option is named "Timeframe" and gives advertisers the ability to budget by month or by day. The help document explains this a bit better.

The difference between monthly and daily is described as:

With a daily budget, lower traffic days may mean that your ads receive fewer impressions and have some budget leftover. We don't use this leftover budget, but we do attempt to compensate for the loss in traffic by serving impressions up to 20% over the daily budget on high traffic days. However, some high traffic days require budget flexibility beyond this amount.

With a monthly budget, we'll adjust your budget automatically each day to meet traffic demand while still respecting your budget for the calendar month. For example, if your ads often receive less traffic on non-business days during a month, we'll apply your unused budget to remaining business days to take traffic fluctuations into account.

AdWordsAdvisor, the official Google representative, at WebmasterWorld confirmed the new budgeting option, saying:

Sounds as if the one account has been made a part of a limited beta test, ppcbuyers. Not much I can add beyond that. :)

Are you seeing the option? Will you be giving it a try? Let us know.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Just a quick heads up that the Google team has posted a notification at Google Groups that the AdWords team will be conducting maintenance this Saturday.

Both the AdWords login console and the API will be offline between 10am and 2pm pacific time. Here is the message from Jeffrey Posnick, AdWords API Team:

We'll be performing routine system maintenance on Saturday, January 10 from approximately 10:00am to 2:00pm PST. You won't be able to access AdWords or the API during this time frame, but your ads will continue to run as normal.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

A week ago, we reported that the Google Mobile team is using a new tool to track and monitor how popular feature requests are. Well, it seems like Google AdWords started their own similar tool, using Google Moderator.

A AdWords Help thread has AdWordsPro Sarah suggesting that one advertiser go to the "AdWords Wish List" at http://moderator.appspot.com/#15/e=de65&t=e52c and submit and vote of feature requests.

Looking at Google Moderator versus the Google Product Ideas site, it is the same thing, just with a custom URL. So, it seems like Google product lines are starting to migrate their feature request lists to Google Moderator, some getting custom URLs, so that users can vote on which ones they want to use.

It is a sort of Digg approach to feature requests, which I like.

Forum discussion at AdWords Help.

You don't hear the word "penalty" come up much when you are talking about Google's AdWords program. I hear it all the time with Google's web search algorithm, but rarely when it comes to Google's AdWords quality score algorithm.

In a AdWords Help thread a Google representative actually used the term penalty, to describe why a person has a low quality score.

The advertiser asked why his Quality Score is so low, in which AdWordsPro Sarah replied, "the bad news is your page is probably being penalized for the redirect." She goes on to explain how the redirects are "misleading," and recommends that instead of using a redirect, he/she should create his/her "own unique content" that adds value to the affiliate product that is being promoted.

It is funny, because the last time we used the word "penalty" with AdWords was when it came with the affiliate business.

Forum discussion at AdWords Help.

Update: Sarah from Google did update the thread to explain redirects can be used professionally. But still interesting that redirects can cause a penalty when used wrong.

A WebmasterWorld thread reports that advertisers are having to login twice to the Google AdWords console to gain access. I have confirmed the issue on my Mac running Firefox.

In short, you go to adwords.google.com and type in your username and password. Then you click login and it takes you back to the login screen. You then enter in the information in again and it let's you in. Second time a charm? Nah. It seems to be a cookie bug of some sort.

One user said Google is aware of the issue and recommended the user switch to a different browser. But the user said that Google said it was an Internet Explorer issue, which is not the case.

In any event, member RhinoFish suggested:

go to this url: https://adwords.google.com/select/

And try and login (don't use your password manager if you use one).

If it lets you in the first time, check your password manager (or bookmark) that you've been using and see what the url is that you have been using. if the url above works, rebookmark or edit the url in your password manager.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Google AdWords has a newish (October 2008) feature that some AdWords advertisers have the option of giving a try named Smart Positioning (BETA). I looked back and I don't believe we talked about Smart Positioning (BETA) here, so I thought I find a thread and discuss it now.

WebProWorld has the only discussion on Google's Smart Positioning that I could find and it is not much discussion at all.

What is Smart Positioning? Google says this is a special bidding feature that is designed to get you "more clicks for the same total cost." How does it do that? Google explains:

1. Smart Positioning calculates incremental CPCs to evaluate the effects on cost and clickthrough rate that would be associated with a higher position for your ad.
2. Once our system determines the incremental CPC for putting your ad in a higher position, it compares the incremental CPC to your maximum CPC bid.
3. Your ad is placed in the highest position possible, as long as both the actual CPC for that position and the incremental CPC are less than your maximum CPC bid.

Google provides a few examples on how exactly this plays out. In addition, you can read the FAQ for Smart Positioning in detail, which includes how to turn it on and then how to turn it off.

I saw it on one of my client's account but I personally have not given it a try. Have you?

Forum discussion at WebProWorld.

On December 17, we announced Google's plans to push out a data refresh for the Sandbox due to some issues and bugs that users have been encountering.

The initial Sandbox refresh was scheduled for December 19th. Apparently, though, Google has announced that the Sandbox update has been postponed for about 2 weeks. No further information is available.

Update 12/30: According to the Google Groups thread, the update occurred on 12/29.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

A WebmasterWorld member is disappointed that he as a Google AdWords advertiser is unable to bid with any reasonable price on any ads because corporations, as he sees it, are greedy and are raising bid prices. He is frustrated that these corporations are not interested in lowering their bids to a profitable level and thus his ads are not appearing given that some big company is driving up the costs.

But is that really what's happening? Perhaps there are corporations that don't care to lower their bid costs, just like the guy says. But perhaps there are corporations that fired their Google AdWords consultants or Internet Marketing type people and they simply forgot to regularly review the Google AdWords accounts. That means there are hundreds of thousands of wasted dollars on ads because the companies are not evolving with the times. That's more likely in this scenario.

What do you think?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Yesterday, we reported that Google Quietly Released AdWords Editor 7.0. We thought they did it quietly for a reason, but it turned out - they blogged about it soon after and people began installing it. I was hoping they wouldn't announce it fully until they worked out the kinks.

Now I see a post from AdWordsAdvisor in that WebmasterWorld thread announcing a bug with the automated backup feature. Let me quote you:

We've discovered an issue with the automatic backup feature in version 7.0 (the 'Backup then Update' option in the upgrade prompt). If you have unposted changes and comments, and you haven't yet installed the new version, please back up your changes by exporting an archive before upgrading. You can see detailed instructions for manual backup, as well as what to do if you've already installed version 7.0, in the Help Center: http://www.google.com/support/adwordseditor/bin/answer.py?answer=134497

So, if you downloaded it, be careful and read the quote above.

Forum discussion continued at WebmasterWorld.

For you big AdWords API users, you should know there that on the 19th, Google is pushing out a data refresh for the Sandbox and that there are continued Sandbox issues and bugs.

1. Sandbox Database Refresh is to take place this Friday, December 19th. Jeff Posnick from the AdWords API Team said, "the normal monthly Sandbox database refresh is planned for this Friday, December 19." He added that you should expect "brief downtime" followed by "campaign and account data will be cleared out."
2. Sandbox Accessibility Issues are still occurring. Jeff explained Google released a patch to the "account login code" on December 16th. He hopes this fixes the issues people have been noticing. So far, there are no confirmed reports that the patch has fixed the issue.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

I don't believe I have seen any announcement around the fact that Google has released version 7.0 of the AdWords Editor, but they have.

The release notes document many of the changes, including:

• First page bid estimates: AdWords Editor now uses first page bid estimates for your keywords. Minimum cost-per-click (CPC) bids are no longer used.
• Keyword Quality Score: The Keywords tab now displays the Quality Score for your keywords.
• Keyword Opportunities locale: Tailor your keyword suggestions to a particular language and location by changing your Keyword Opportunities locale.
• Campaign targeting in the data view: You can view your targeting settings in the new 'Language' and 'Location' columns on the Campaigns tab. These columns are hidden by default, but you can select them with the column chooser.
• Send feedback to Google: Help us improve AdWords Editor by enabling usage tracking in your AdWords Editor settings (Tools menu > Settings).
• The 'Volume' column on the Keyword expansion tab of the Keyword Opportunities tool now shows absolute numbers (traffic for the last month) instead of scaled values.
• The Keyword Opportunities tool isn't available for draft accounts.

Why so hush hush about the 7.0 release? Well, possibly because the 6.5 AdWords editor was plagued with issues that didn't get resolved until two weeks later. So maybe a quiet release will get early adopters to update, submit bugs and give Google a better chance at fixing 7.0 before more people download it. Or maybe they will announce the update today and I am wrong.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Update: There is a bug with the automated backup feature, so beware.

In a Google Groups thread, AdWordsPro Sarah offers some nice optimization tips for mobile users. She acknowledges that they shouldn't be ignored; there are 405 million mobile users worldwide, she says.

If you want a business presence in the mobile realm, you can create a business page for mobile ads.

Additionally, for your Google AdWords campaign, make the following considerations: your website should be mobile friendly (or have a mobile friendly website available for mobile users only). Your keywords should be 1-3 words, broad match, with general terms. You can use geo-modifiers for local businesses.

The ad text should be short and compelling (18 characters) and the text itself should also be 18 characters. You can use text speak (e.g. CUL8R).

Google also has a mobile FAQ for more insights.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google has recently allowed advertisers to place AdWords ads for hard liquors, beer, and even gambling ads in the UK, but has now banned ads for the keyword phrase, [horse racing].

A WebmasterWorld thread says this ban is brand new. He has had ads for that keyword phrase for a long time and now Google is telling him that these ads are not a "good match for AdWords". Even if you sell sporting goods for horse racing, or horse racing toys or anything not related to the gambling side, you cannot bid on the term [horse racing] (you can bid on [horse racing toys]).

Senior member, woop01 said:

We have been told by an Adwords rep that now horse racing and horse racing related activities are no longer considered a "good match for Adwords". I'm not talking about the wagering aspect of horse racing, the entire sport of horse racing.

We spent an afternoon removing any of the very minor references to wagering on a horse racing site that had been advertising with Adwords for years. Unfortunately, it was only after we did it that the rep then said that horse racing in general is the problem.

I find the whole thing fairly interesting.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

In a Google Groups thread, AdWordsPro Sarah has asked us what our favorite bid management tools are. There are a two different tools represented thus far, and it's interesting to see what you've got to add.

One user acknowledges that he likes Google's tools (which fortunately are free).

Another is using SearchRev.

I'm going to mention that I saw a demo for Acquisio's tool back at SMX East, I think, and it looked mighty fine. (I don't use any tool right now since I don't really do PPC regularly, but if I had to pick something, this would be it.)

What tools do you use?

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

The Inside AdWords blog mentions that Google is now empowering advertisers to target their normal "desktop" ads to users on the iPhone, the T-Mobile G1, and other mobile devices with full-fledged web browsers. We acknowledged late last month that you can target ads to different platforms (be it a desktop/laptop computer or a mobile device with full Internet browsers), and now it's been officially confirmed by Google:

Amanda Kelly of Google says:

This new option will now allow you to display your ads specifically on these devices, create exclusive campaigns for them, and get separate performance reporting. We hope this option will help you more effectively reach your audience with the right message at the right time.

This all seems promising, but I think that a few people are suspicious about the same functionality. It may be best for Google to focus on geotargeting better to users with mobile devices and offering services that empower advertisers to leverage this traffic.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Disclaimer: Like the previous post on this subject matter, this is a title only that is intended to attract attention and nothing but. (In case you're wondering who the author of this post is, she likes social media and these are the types of headlines that raise your eyebrows. Am I wrong?)

We're learning that Google is leaning toward the left in terms of the kinds of ads they are now allowing: the Inside AdWords blog says that Google is now allowing the promotion of hard alcohol and liquor via Google AdWords.

That's not without clause, though. Google requires all advertisers to feature information about the liquor/alcohol.

To comply with the updated hard alcohol and liqueurs policy, advertisers must promote the information about hard alcohol and liqueurs that their websites contain, such as recipes and brand messages. Ads that directly promote the sale of hard alcohol and liqueurs are still not permissible through our program. In contrast, advertisements for beer may directly promote its sale.

The timing, naturally, is good for the holidays -- especially since it's almost New Years -- so if you're able to promote the brands of hard alcohol and liquor and can comply with Google's guidelines, you may want to focus your advertisements on the 2009 festivities.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

AdWordsPro Sarah is asking forum members about their favorite blogs. There's no end game yet, but it was proposed that if there are enough relevant blogs, it's possible to get a "forum blogroll." Wouldn't that be cool?

So, what blogs on paid search do you read? So far, we have a nice list of well-known blogs and others. And of course, we have our own Google AdWords category which definitely fits the bill -- and is specific to Google AdWords and not just paid search (though as you know as a regular reader, we cover that aspect too!)

If you're looking for some paid search blogs or want to contribute your own blog or a favorite to the mix, be sure to contribute to the discussion at Google Groups.

A WebmasterWorld member is surprised Google is allowing ads with the titles "Blackhat SEO" to show up in AdWords ads for searches on seo.

Here is a screen capture I took yesterday, but it is still showing up today.

The member asked if there is something that can be done. One member replied that you can notify Google about this at this feedback form.

However, senior member, pageoneresults, response might be the most accurate:

Heh! Good luck. Google makes some good money from those ads and there are quite a few of them. That may end up being a full time position for ya, the reporting that is. ;)

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

AdWordsAdvisor has replied to the WebmasterWorld thread I was tracking on Google sending out holiday gifts to advertisers and publishers. AdWordsAdvisor said Google will not be sending out gifts to advertisers and publishers like they have in the past. Why? AdWordsAdvisor say because it "is not the most appropriate gesture this year given the current global economic climate."

Are you kidding me? Just say the truth. The gesture is right, cause these publishers and advertisers earned you millions of dollars in 2008. It is just because you guys are cutting back in preparation for an incredibly horrible 2009. I am not upset that the gifts are not going out, in fact, I considered the same for my company - but I decided to just spend less this year, as opposed to cutting it out of our budget. Just be honest, tell it like it is. It is that Google is trying to save money, like the rest of the world. I do not see how it is an inappropriate gesture. In fact, it would be very appropriate to stand up as a different company and say - hey, we value the advertisers and publishers that make our business run and here is a gift, even if it is just a card, to say thank you. But to call it inappropriate? I don't buy that.

So why are some people getting gifts? Well, some people are outliers and they get Google fridges and special schwag from Google on a per company basis. But the mass holiday gift in 2008, as you can see above, has been cancelled.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

AdWordsAdvisor has replied to the WebmasterWorld thread I was tracking on Google sending out holiday gifts to advertisers and publishers. AdWordsAdvisor said Google will not be sending out gifts to advertisers and publishers like they have in the past. Why? AdWordsAdvisor say because it "is not the most appropriate gesture this year given the current global economic climate."

Are you kidding me? Just say the truth. The gesture is right, cause these publishers and advertisers earned you millions of dollars in 2008. It is just because you guys are cutting back in preparation for an incredibly horrible 2009. I am not upset that the gifts are not going out, in fact, I considered the same for my company - but I decided to just spend less this year, as opposed to cutting it out of our budget. Just be honest, tell it like it is. It is that Google is trying to save money, like the rest of the world. I do not see how it is an inappropriate gesture. In fact, it would be very appropriate to stand up as a different company and say - hey, we value the advertisers and publishers that make our business run and here is a gift, even if it is just a card, to say thank you. But to call it inappropriate? I don't buy that.

So why are some people getting gifts? Well, some people are outliers and they get Google fridges and special schwag from Google on a per company basis. But the mass holiday gift in 2008, as you can see above, has been cancelled.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

We're in poor economic times, and Google is looking for ways to help offset the burden. That's why Google has recently announced the publication of this Top Tactics for Tough Times document on how you can work with Google AdWords to make things easier.

Here are the categories (and the document explains them in depth):

1. Focus your ads on low prices and savings.
2. Use value-related keywords.
3. Make sure your ad groups are targeted and relevant.
4. Don't waste money on irrelevant clicks.
5. Make it easy for customers to buy.
6. Focus your money on your high performers.

Even if not in tough times, these are good guidelines to follow in general--but the article does prove to be useful now more than ever.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

December 1st was Cyber Monday, and a lot of publishers and advertisers have seen increases in earnings per click and even in Quality Score. These are great results for publishers and advertisers, but what exactly could be the cause?

Suspicions have been set on the biggest online shopping day of the year. After all, the Monday after Thanksgiving denotes big holiday discounts and preparation for the Christmas holiday. I've seen Santa running all over the television screen, for example, and in paper ads. The media is telling you that it's a good time to shop, and the public is listening.

Of course, high clickthrough rates don't necessarily mean purchases nowadays; people are checking out reviews before they buy.

Maybe it's not as easily explained as that, but it does seem that a lot of people were experiencing the same results on 12/1 and this does make some logical sense.

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

I am hearing reports from Search Engine Watch Forums that Google is now testing text ad formats for ads on Google Image search.

You can see two screen captures of this in action, one at AccuraCast.com and the other at Michael Gray's blog.

In the most recent ads on Google image search we saw image or banner ads on image search. Now it appears Google is going back to the more textual based ad format.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Did you know that using accented characters in Google AdWords would mean you need to use both variations? For example, if you advertiser for the keyword [construção], you would also need to advertise for the unaccented version [construcao]. I guess this is a good thing, because sometimes, advertisers only want to show their ads to those who are capable or knowledgeable to use accented characters when searching.

A Google AdWords Help Discussion asks this question. AdWordsPro Sarah replied saying:

Great question. The short and simple answer is that the system reads these as two different words. Accented characters are treated as their own letters, not variations on the base letters. That said, if you included one of these words in broad match, the chances of the keyword expanding out to the other variation is very good because the keywords are so similar. If everything is exact match, you will need to include both.

So technically, they are different words. But if you use broad match, it is possible, but not guaranteed, that Google will show your ad when you bid for [construção] but someone searches for the unaccented version of [construcao] or visa versa.

We discussed a similar topic two years ago on how the non-paid algorithms handle accented characters.

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Help.

There are sometimes where you don't want to show your Google ads to iPhone or mobile users and sometimes where you don't want to show your ads to desktop or laptop users. Google understands this and has finally given a new campaign setting option within AdWords to specify the "device platform" you want your ads to show for.

A Search Engine Watch Forums thread reports one advertiser seeing this option in his account. I personally do not see this option in my account yet. Here is a picture:

Google added help documentation for this section. The question and answers include:

• Why is there now an option to show my ads on desktop and laptop computers? Isn't that where ads have always shown?
• What are full browsers, and what sort of mobile devices does this include?
• What are the different options for targeting ads to mobile phones and devices?

Advertisers are always happy to have more control over who sees there ads and in this case, on what platform.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

Well, officially, tomorrow starts the holiday gift buying season. We all want to cash in on these next two months. That might include Google. I am hearing rumors at Search Engine Watch Forums that Google is expanding the controversial AdWords Automatic Matching keyword technology. Currently in beta, Automatic Matching was expanded already once, back in May of this year.

What is automatic matching in AdWords? In short, automatic matching is a new algorithm used to automatically target new keywords, not included in an advertiser's set keyword list, in order to use up all of the advertisers allocated budget. So if you are advertising for [Adidas shoes] and you have $10 left in your ad budget for the day, Google might decide to show your ads for search terms as far off as [slippers]. Like, I said above, there is a lot of controversy around it.

Now we are hearing rumors from substantial AdWords advertisers that they are pushing this beta test on additional advertisers. Literally right before the holiday season. Accucast has a screen capture of where this setting is found in AdWords.

So beware and watch your budgets carefully, especially at this time of the season.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Watch Forums.

At the new Google Groups, even more wholesome good tips are being offered, this time from users to users.

Today's subject is on Location Targeting. Using Location Targeting, advertisers can take advantage of their audience based on the location they are searching from.

Two tips are being offered:

One suggests that you take advantage of IP-based targeting. Google is able to figure out where users are searching from by looking at the users' IP addresses. A more detailed location targeting tutorial is referenced.

Additionally, you can achieve location targeting by including the location you wish to target in the keyword. Google can figure out the location due to query parsing. However, if you utilize this, it takes priority over IP targeting. Also, be liberal - don't include location targeting and location based keywords (since that's overkill).

You're also able to use location targeting for ads on the content network and Google uses the IP address to target. Finally, it's noted that local ads are not preferred -- you're still competing with other AdWords advertisers for the same location.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

A new Google AdWords interface may be coming to an account near you. At Search Engine Land, Barry provides screenshots of this greener interface that looks like it's sporting a new green type of Gmail theme.

Here are some screens:

If you want to be considered as a test user, you should read Google's blog post announcing the test interface and sign up with the instructions.

Whatcha think?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

Want some industry information about getting the most of your Google AdWords budget? Check out the Google Optimization Center, which gives you some great strategies depending on the type of industry you're in. PDF files are offered in each individual sector. Areas covered include automotive, education, health care, retail, travel, technology, local, finance, and business and industrial markets.

AdWordsPro Sarah explains how these documents can be used.

[I]f you run a travel site, you could download the travel optimization PDF for tips on ways to increase the ROI on your top trips.

What else can you get out of this? You'll know when to better target your campaigns (as Sarah says, there's no "one size fits all" method for advertising) and how to do it.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

For those Google AdWords API developers, you should be aware that currently any requests sent over the SOAP protocol to the API Sandbox will return an error.

A Google Groups thread has one developer complaining and an official Google representative confirming the issue. Jeff Posnick from the AdWords API Team said:

I can confirm that the Sandbox is returning "internal error" SOAP faults for all requests right now. I've let the engineering team know and they're investigating the root cause.

Typically, sandbox errors are not fixed as quickly as production errors. But since the API is returning errors for all SOAP requests, I have a feeling this will be fixed faster than an normal sandbox bug.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Let's say you've geotargeted your Google AdWords ad for Florida. You'd be alarmed if you saw that the ad was being run in Oslo, Norway, wouldn't you?

I suppose I would be.

Is this a problem with Google? Well, in a way, it could be. AdWordsPro Sarah explains what could be happening if the geotargeting seems to be off as "query parsing [which] helps people who reside outside your targeted region but are interested in your product/service in your targeted region." To illustrate this phenomenon, she says that if you're targeting an ad with the keywords "buy surfboard" to Florida, and a guy from Oslo searches "buy surfboard florida," query parsing would come into play. After all, they're looking to find out ads specific to another region, and they can't do that with geotargeting blocking out Oslo from this specific query.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google has launched a new tool called the Search-Based Keyword Tool which lets you know which keywords your customers are searching for and which you should advertise with based on your site's content. From an interview with Barry and Google at Search Engine Land, the goal of this tool is to "give advertisers a look at keywords that they are currently not advertising for that might bring in a positive ROI."

A screenshot of the tool is here:

Looks pretty impressive -- a lot of good information is provided. Now is this tool linked from any existing Google property or only a bunch of blog posts?

Also, it seems that Google has also updated the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. One member notices that the October 2008 number for searches has been updated. Perhaps this is related (or not) to the launch of the new tool.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn, WebmasterWorld, and DigitalPoint Forums.

In the Official Google Blog, Nick Fox points out that Google is rolling out "ads in new places." These locations include:

• Image ads in Google Image Search (SERoundtable coverage and a foreshadowing post)
• Sponsored videos on YouTube (SERoundtable coverage)
• Text ads on Google Finance, which was rolled out on Monday. Search Engine Watch Forums member abbottsys calls this a "financially smart" move, saying:

  If you do a stock quote on a company the AdWords ads that display are not finance, they are for the industry sector of the company. In other words, AdWords knows what industry you're in based just on your trading symbol, and displays appropriate ads.

• Google will also be rolling out ads on news refinements in the actual search engine, so that if you click on a news link, there will be text ads nearby.

Forum discussion continues at Search Engine Watch Forums.

We discussed the Google AdWords policy on a max URL character space of 35 in the past. They recently started enforcing this rule back in June of this year.

A new Google Groups thread has an issue where on advertiser needs to have a display URL that is longer than 35 characters. So what can he/she do? AdWordsPro Sarah says that you can submit an exception.

In short, make your display URL 35 characters, and ask for an exception to allow the display URL not match your real URL. Sarah explained:

We can grant exceptions for URLs that are over the 35 character limit. I suggest you modify your URL to something like GreenSolar-Wind-Hydrogen-Energy.com and then, when you submit the ad, ask for an exception request (see links below). If you explain that your URL is over the 35 character limit, our policy team can help manually approve your ad to run.

You can submit an exception request to Google over here and to learn more about exceptions, see here.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

AdWordsPro Sarah is not done giving Google AdWords subscribers great tips. In yesterday's tip #8 on Google Groups, Sarah tells us about how to take advantage of negative keywords.

She explains that if you are using a negative keyword like -fast blue, any keyword iteration that utilizes both words will not show up, including terms like "blue fast". Essentially, consider an "AND" operation. Therefore, if you use a key phrase like "fast car mercedes," and there's no mention of "blue," an ad will show. But with the inclusion of "fast car mercedes blue," the ad will not show because both terms are included in the negative keyword.

On the other hand, if you had a negative keyword like "-fast blue", which is a negative phrase match, you won't get ads that show "fast blue" in the actual keyword list. But if you had an ad like "fast green blue", it would show up.

Sarah goes through examples for negative exact match also.

Understanding negative keywords and how they are applied in different scenarios should help you get an understanding of how to maximize your campaign and make sure to generate the most targeted impressions.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

Google's video ads can be an interesting way to drive more traffic to your site. But if you expect video ads to be approved immediately or as quickly as your text ads, don't bank on it.

A Google AdWords Group thread has one advertiser who posted his video yesterday and got impatient. He then asked how long it will take for approval and AdWordsPro Sarah said it takes about 48 hours but can take longer depending on the "volume of submissions."

This answer really does not correspond to the answer at the FAQ, where Google wrote:

Your video ad will begin running as soon as it is processed and passes through our editorial review. This process usually takes a few hours, but it may take as long as a day.

I guess Sarah is right?

Forum discussion at Google AdWords Group.

On Google Groups, AdWordsPro Sarah is giving us tips on how to engage in the Google content network in such a way that you can optimize that contextual traffic. Recently, she shared a tip on how Google suggests you get this done.

The idea is to separate the content and search campaigns. Why is this necessary? When people are searching in a contextual basis versus in a search basis, they have different mindsets. In the former, they're already looking at content; they're not searching for it. Therefore, capturing the person's attention in the content network is more important.

Other benefits of this practice include being able to maintain different budgets, write different ad copy, and more.

In a second Google Groupsposting, Sarah says that you should create tightly knit ad group themes. Google needs to look at all the keywords in an ad group to determine relevancy among text. As Sarah says, "[t]his means that individual keywords do not matter as much as the particular theme (or concept) of the type of websites you want to target."

So what keywords correspond with what themes? You can use the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups and Google Groups (#2).

Google has a requirement -- at least, the site says so -- that you need to be enrolled in the Google Professional Program to be considered for the AdWords exam. But is it really required?

AdWordsPro thinks so (but unfortunately isn't 100% sure). I think that if it says it's required, it probably is.

The question is: is Google really strictly enforcing this requirement? Search Engine Roundtable readers: do you know? Have any of you ever tried to register for the exam (which is paid) and had the course enrollment requirement be an obstacle?

Let us know in the comments.

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

So, as you know, I am a bit YouTuber. Okay, I am not, but I do have a YouTube channel with weekly videos on search news, that some of you watch, some of you listen to and some of you ignore.

In order to get some new viewers, I decided to try to promote my videos for search related keywords. I tried, at least, but Google won't let me run my ads and I am not sure why.

I read the YouTube blog post's instructions and several articles on the topic at Techmeme. I login to YouTube Ads and I set up my campaign, hit run and it gives me an error. Here are some of the screens, not all of them, but some:

The dashboard with my single ad:

This is the screen asking me to confirm my ad and then make it live:

This is the error I get after hitting the big GO like button:

So maybe when I get back to my office in New York, I can try to figure out what is wrong. I have some ideas, but we will see.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Yesterday, a few advertisers reported at WebmasterWorld that they were unable to see data at the ad group level, after logging into their Google AdWords accounts. They were able to see data at the campaign level, but not at the Ad Group level.

After a couple of hours or so, the problem seemed to fix itself. Well, someone had to call Google for support and Google told them to clear their cache.

So if you have any issues with this problem, first try clearing your cache and/or restarting. That should clear things up for your day.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.

Say you imported hundreds or thousands of keywords into your Google AdWords account. Chances are if you are working with high volume, you may have duplicated your keywords across ad groups. How do you find these and address them?

There are two ways suggested:

First, you can mouseover the keyword and wait for the little "spy glass" which will show you if another ad shows up for that keyword.

Second, you can perform a search. If the keyword is duplicated, all instances will be returned.

These should come in handy, though I actually prefer the first suggestion that was not suggested by a Google rep. (Speaking of which, this comes from a new-style Google Groups thread and it's almost impossible to distinguish Google employees from regular forum participants. Can Google bring back the blue "G," please, to denote authority?)

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups.

A Google Groups thread reports issues with using the Google AdWords Verify Code option. The verify code tool seems to have been removed.

Why? AdWordsPro.Steph said it was removed because it came with the PPA (Pay Per Action) options. Google dropped the PPA program back in July and slowly phased out the Verify Code tool in September. Steph said:

The 'Verify Code' option was one of the features that came with PPA ads, which AdWords started to phase out this September. Along with this sunset, the ability to 'verify' your conversion tracking code using the verification tool will be disabled this week. Moving forward, you'll need to check conversions the old way - by completing a test conversion and checking your reports.

Hopefully this helps some advertisers that are looking for the tool.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Google is now clearly showing if a keyword is trademarked or not, directly in the Google AdWords Keyword Tool.

For example, a search on "iphone" returns a little ™ symbol near the term, i.e. iphone™. Here is a picture:

This can greatly speed up the process for advertiser who are looking to avoid trying to bid on trademarked terms. I am honestly not sure the exact details of why this was added, so these are all assumptions right now.

Hat tip to Gabs and Kasia Bauer for notifying me of this.

Forum discussion at Search Engine Roundtable Forums.

Yesterday, I had a conversation with Nick Fox of Google about the most recent quality score changes. I posted the extremely interesting question and answer session at Search Engine Land last night. I was honestly shocked by one of his answers, shocked!

When I asked how Google changed the process of normalizing the CTR scores for ad position, he explained the old way versus the new way. In the past, Google took a lower ranking ad and moved it in a higher position to test to see how that ad's CTR would change. Any clicks on that ad were not charged to the advertiser, plus this was done on a very very small percentage of searches. It was the way Google could get a good metric for what the CTR would be for that ad, in the same ad position.

I was shocked by that, just because it sounds totally weird. It makes sense, don't get me wrong. But I just assumed that Google used, what it is using today, a statistical model to adjust those numbers. Now, they switched to a statistical model to adjust the ad's CTR for normalizing that factor within the quality score.

In any event, you probably want to read the whole discussion at Search Engine Land. I personally felt that specific tidbit was fairly enlightening.

Forum discussion at Sphinn.

Want to buy beer? Until recently, you could search for "beer" on Google and not see any Google ads since it was against the policy. But recently, Taylor Pratt had the desire to get drunk bid on some alcoholic keywords (maybe?) and discovered that Google was allowing individuals to buy alcoholic keywords, which is a change that Google has not previously made public. He has a quote from his Google AdWords rep which says:

Beer, wine and champagne may now be promoted from ad text and may be the focus of your site. We consider beer, wine and champagne to be products intended for the sale and consumption of adults. Therefore, ads promoting beer, wine and champagne will be given a ‘Non-Family Safe’ status.

This only applies to the three types of alcohol -- beer, wine, and champagne -- but not hard liquor, which Google is still prohibiting.

Barry notes, by the way, that wine and champagne were always allowed and that beer is a recent addition. Google is not saying why beer has recently been allowed by Google AdWords.

Forum discussion continues at Sphinn.

A fairly basic but confusing question in the pay-per-click auction space of search advertising is often around the topic of match types and the auction around it.

One question asked at a Google Groups thread asks if I am bidding $2.00 for broad match and $1.50 for an exact match and someone searches for the exact keyword, do I pay $2? The clear answer to that is that you pay up to a $1.50. Why? As AdWordsPro Sarah said in the thread:

If you are bidding $1.50 for the exact, Google assumes you don't want to pay more than that. You have decided that broad matches are worth $2 and exact match are worth $1.50. If we just always picked the highest bid, there would be no point in you setting different bids for the different match types.

The follow up question to that, was who wins? Meaning, would a higher bid in broad match from a competitor beat out your lower bid within your exact match campaign? As Sarah notes, assuming all else is equal, the higher bid will win.

So, if you have an exact match with a lower vid and a broad match with a higher bid, but your competitor has just a broad match with a higher bid then Google will pick your exact match bid and your competitors broad match bid and compete those two ads based on bid and quality score.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

Typically, if you see an ad first, you are more likely to click that ad over the ad you see later. Meaning, in Google, the search ads are listed along the right hand column. If you are in position one or two, you are more likely to be clicked on than if you are in position seven or eight. Now, the quality score used by Google AdWords takes CTR (click through rate) into account as the primary quality score metric. Ads doomed to be at the bottom of the page, will receive an impression but not a click at a higher rate than an ad at the top. So those ads, sometimes, tend to be doomed, if the CPC is not increased to move the ad up.

Update #2: Google gave me this statement, basically saying, this is an update to how they normalize the CTR. "The first change mentioned in yesterday's blog post simply gives advertisers advance notice that we'll soon be making improvements to the existing technology that we've already been using to account for ad position. We'll employ fresher, updated data that will help us calculate Quality Scores even more precisely," said a Google spokesperson.

Google is now going to change the quality score algorithm to take ad position into account. So while one ad in the top position might have a higher CTR, an ad in the seventh position with a lower CTR should not impact the quality score as much as it did in the past. This should allow all the ads to "compete fairly," as Google said and thus make for a more relevant ad space in Google.

An additional change is with the ads above the organic results. Only ads above a certain quality threshold can be in the top spot, above the organic results. The thing is, if a ad in position 1 did not meet a threshold but ad in position 2 did meet that threshold, then ad 2 would not be promoted to the top spot. With the new algorithm, ad 2 will not be held back by ad 1's lack of quality.

I think these two changes are very encouraging. We have very little forum discussion around it right now.

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

Update: Jeremy Mayes reminds me that Google has always normalized the CTR calculation based on ad position. So as Jeremy asks, what is new here? Google made this calculation better? If so, how exactly? I emailed Google to find out more information, I will update this post when I get that information.

We have reported time and time again about Google AdWords accounts being hacked into and abused. Typically, the hackers gain access, set up a new campaign, generate tons of ads, pointing to temporary domains and use your credit card to pay for that traffic. But I have never really noticed the ads in the raw search results for such hacked campaigns. Until now, that is.

A DigitalPoint Forums thread lead me to a search for earth4energy in Google. The search ads returned, in some cases, returned as many as 7 of the 8 search ads that lead, to what looks like, spammer sites. The ads were probably generated via a hacked AdWords account and they used .CN TLDs to set up temporary landing pages.

Here is a picture of two of those ads that I personally can see right now:

All the domains listed for this search result seem to have the same owner:

Domain Name: asweg.com.cn
ROID: 20080813s10011s06156148-cn
Domain Status: clientDeleteProhibited
Domain Status: clientTransferProhibited
Registrant Organization: 陈
Registrant Name: 陈诚
Administrative Email: yjc20047@hotmail.com
Sponsoring Registrar: 易名中国
Name Server:ns1.hostmonster.com
Name Server:ns2.hostmonster.com
Registration Date: 2008-08-13 17:40

For our past coverage of AdWords account hacks, see below:

• When Will Google AdWords Prevent Account Hijackings?
• Increase in Google AdWords Accounts Being Hacked Into?
• Google AdWords Account Hacked: False Ads & False Charges
• Alert: More Google AdWords Phishing Attempts
• Beware of Google AdWords Phishing Email
• Google AdWords Phishing Attempt Via Google Legal Subpoena

Forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.

If you are a big Google AdWords API user and you have been messing around in the API's Sandbox yesterday or today, you may have been experiencing some issues. Many API users are reporting weird glitches with the sandbox.

Errors are being returned to API users after API calls. The errors are all over the place, but you can see a few mentioned in the Google Groups thread.

Jeff Posnick of the AdWords API Team confirmed the issue, saying:

I can answer the "SandBox wigging out?" question in the affirmative: yes, the Sandbox is wigging out. It's having some trouble coming back after one of its periodic data refreshes. The engineering team is aware of the issue and is working on normalizing things.

Typically, AdWords API Sandbox issues are not a priority for Google's engineering staff. Why? Well, the sandbox is for testing purposes only. So it is not a live production issue that impacts real users, with real dollars. It is a sandbox, playground, if you will. So hopefully this will be taken care of shortly, we will see.

Forum discussion at Google Groups.

So, your Google AdWords rep invites you to spend the day at Google for optimization tips and tricks. What would you do if you had that opportunity? What would you ask Google?

Most forum members are concerned most about the Quality Score. One forum member poses that the following question be asked:

Ask them for specific, concrete examples of what factors and strategies have a direct impact on improving the various quality scores in your account (account, campaign, adgroup, ad text, keyword, landing pages, geo-targeting).

Others find that having this opportunity won't be that helpful; Google will likely take a politician's stance here. However, there are people who argue that Google may respond more positively in a one-on-one rather than providing the same information for the general public.

Who knows, though -- maybe this meeting will prove fruitful. Wouldn't you like to sit face to face with a Google rep?

Forum discussion continues at WebmasterWorld.

There are a few unhappy campers who are a bit disappointed with some of issues that relate to Google AdWords and its tool. In a Google Groups thread, a user discovers that he can't actually "Accept" the terms of using the program on a Mac -- it's grayed out. Unfortunately for him, he had to uninstall and reinstall 3 times and he found out that it was actually an application bug. Google has since released a patch.

Meanwhile, over at WebmasterWorld, similar frustrations were discussed. One forum member hates that 6.5.0 runs 50% slower than previous versions, which is something we reported two weeks ago as well (though this is the same discussion). However, not much has changed in the past two weeks, hence the reason for bringing this thread up again. Forum members have even attempted to roll back to a previous version without success.

After several days of discussing and ranting, however, AdWordsAdvisor has announced a fix -- version 6.5.1. This new version fixes the Keyword Opportunities tool (which was reported to have been broken on 6.5.0), fixes the Terms of Service (thank you, Google Groups member), and addresses other issues. The speed concern, however, is not mentioned by AdWordsAdvisor, but forum members report that there's no issue anymore.

One forum member seems to still be reporting issues, though, and nobody seems to know what the problem is. The problem is that he is getting an error saying: "The procedure entry point sqlite3_prepare_v2 could not be located in the dynamic link library sqlite3.dll". Even an uninstall, reboot, and registry clean isn't isolating the issue for him. Can Google help?

Forum discussion continues at Google Groups and WebmasterWorld.