12 Apr 11 1:05 am
Hi Mark,
It's all about quality and relevancy.
You're right, Google do whatever the hell they like anyway but we just need to try our best to give them what they want to see.
You are putting articles on your site to raise your quality score and lower your cost per click.
I am sure if you built a site on dog training and it was a 50 page site with articles, good navigation, relevant keywords, great looking products, etc.. etc.. Google would have no problems with you and your quality score will be good and you will pay less for your ads.
If you just put up a 5 page site with just a big product pitch fest...then Google will make you pay much higher for your clicks.
Remember that adwords reviews all their ads sooner or later for relevancy, quality and other SEO factors Eg: Domain age, physical locations and phone numbers etc.. etc..
I think it also depends on the niche. I just searched for NUTS AND BOLTS on google Australia and came up with this page as number 1 in adwords..
probolt-australia.com (page rank 2) or
boltmasters.com.au (page rank 2)
Alot of these sites also have physical locations.
You can see by the quality of these sites that a human reviewer would be fine with these and give them a good quality score even though they do not have many articles or even no articles at all and don't forget the fact that they could also be paying top dollar to be high up on the page.
These sites are well established and big, with lots of products that people want to buy.
As a comparison, lets look at another niche...
Dog training products - Yep.. the good ole dog training niche...lol
urbandogtraining.com.au/dog-training-products.html
You can see this site is very good quality and also has some articles on it to the bottom left.
This has a page rank of 2 and ranked number 2 in google for my search.
Now, this site is not advertising on adwords but can you imagine if they did?
Google would have no problem giving them a good quality score.
and here is another adwords site.. crittercottage.com.au
That was number 1 in my search on the left adwords ads column
Notice how down the bottom they have articles?
They do this because it adds VALUE to the site and adds VALUE to the customer experience and Google likes that. It will also lower their cost per click because their quality score and relevancy is high, along with other SEO factors I am sure.
If people build good quality sites like these instead of trying to build a 5 page site stuffed with nothing but products to sell, then you will be much better off when (IF) a Google employee might be having a bad day and presses the big red delete button and then goes off to make himself another cuppacino, without a second thought about your site. :)
With the latest Panda and Farmer updates Google loves Brands and big sites that offer alot of value.
Maybe that will carry over to adwords as well..who knows.
Anyway, just thought I would offer up my opinion.
But yes, it does make you a bit disgruntled when you see sites with no articles or content just selling products and they are fine on adwords while others get shut down.
Like I said, I think it all depends on the niche and product that you are selling.
Regards
Troy
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.
-- Robert Brault