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Google Slap and the Quality Score
johncrosbie
Posts: 13
Joined: 29 Apr 09
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24 Jun 09 3:52 am

Google Slap and the Quality Score

Google's starting to p**s me off!

A few days ago, I finished an Affilorama site (based on relationship-repair products) with 40+ pages of useful, original content -- articles, videos, and product reviews. It has footer links to the main (SEO) site, a privacy notice, disclamer, and terms of service. Just like a real site.

Then I added 20+ PPC pages -- articles, videos, and product reviews -- on pages with no sidebar. In the first phase, I focused on immediate solutions (like fix marriage, stop divorce), and put each solution into its own ad group. Each ad group contains only its laser-focused keywords. And the landing page uses that keyword in the H1 tag, and mentions it several times. That's only reasonable, because that's what the article's about.

When I uploaded the adgroups with Adwords Editor, most keywords had a quality score of 7/10. Fine. But, a day later, every keyword -- every friggin one of them -- had a QS of 1/10. And the feedback is "the landing page isn't highly relevant".

Huh? Each landing page focuses on one topic -- the keyword. And that keyword is used often on that page. And it's used in the ad headline (and also in one description line, and sometimes the display URL). How could the landing page get more relevant?

Has anybody else been Google slapped like this with an Affilorama site?

And does anybody know how to fix it?

Sorry about the rant. The Google robot is driving me nuts!

all the best

John
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PremiumMember
graceharman
Posts: 91
Joined: 19 Oct 08
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03 Aug 09 11:12 pm

 Hey John,

Please post your site's URL and we'll see if we can spot anything.

I'm assuming you've read Mark's blog post on the subject? https://www.affilorama.com/blog/google-slap

Hope we can help :)
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PremiumMember
perswealth
Posts: 35
Joined: 24 Jun 09
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04 Aug 09 4:34 pm

 Have you used the tag "noindex" for the PPC pages? Also, how did those pages rank in Traffic Travis?
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PremiumMember
sean06
Posts: 1004
Joined: 16 Jun 06
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08 Aug 09 1:38 pm

 Google is getting better and better at figuring out what people want. It's basically forcing you to be a better marketer. Don't get annoyed, just do what it wants and not only will you get some Google love, but you'll make more money because you're giving people exactly what they want.

Sean
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faradina
Posts: 1895
Joined: 01 Jun 09
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10 Aug 09 9:58 am

 It is exactly as Sean says. Make the landing pages really useful in relation to your keywords and your quality score will go back up. Content is still king so make sure you have high quality content that is really relevant to your keyword.
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PremiumMember
elogic0007
Posts: 35
Joined: 24 Jun 09
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24 Aug 09 11:18 pm

 Hi , I suffered the same from Google, I to have a 40 page site with 20 ppc pages, I get 7/10 QS then for some reason goes to 1/10, the keyword is matched within the t1 header, the body, the adgroups have 1 word per group and the adgroup has the same name as the keyword, still geting 1/10 quality score... I`m not Amused Google, its taken me 4 weeks to build this Affilorama site .. help anyone
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Moderator
wollowra
Posts: 869
Joined: 14 Mar 08
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24 Aug 09 11:47 pm

 It does seem there is some sort of G slap going on at present.
Well it has for a couple of months now.
Google seem to be very picky with PPC at present.
I am wondering if they have hired more staff to manually review the PPC landing pages and because they are new staff they wouldn't know what good quality is...lol
I am keeping my eyes and ears open about this and if anyone else seems to have some important info then please post it here in the forum.
Mark Ling has also made a post about this on the blog... however he has not seen a very big impact or change in his PPC campaigns.

Regards
Troy
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Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.

-- Robert Brault
 
mdf212
Posts: 32
Joined: 22 Nov 08
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27 Aug 09 4:56 pm

 it would be great to get some actionable info to enable members to get great qs scores.
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rcarney6
Posts: 1
Joined: 30 Jun 09
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03 Sep 09 1:08 pm

 Most people who are trying to help in this latest Google slap seem to give advice to help, but their advice seems to be do exactly what you did: to have multiple pages, to have links to the other pages, to have the keywords placed on the page as you have mentioned, to narrow the number of keywords per adgroup. Those who do that and still get the lowered quality scores feel sort of misunderstood. It seems there must be some other way to improve these things, but the secret is not out yet. Others who say their campagns are not affected may have had the same thing happen if their pages were put through the process too (That's speculation of course). If that were the case, they might have to find other things, themselves, to correct the situation.

Those of us who are relatively new and feel like we are really following all the advice that is given are quite frustrated when it does not seem to work for us.

I hope that soon additional ways to improve our sites will surface.

I sympathize with you--for what that's worth!
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Last edited by michellerana on 30 Oct 09 4:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
 
rcormack
Posts: 14
Joined: 28 Apr 09
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20 Sep 09 12:20 am

 I would assume the replies posted here by Sean and Fara are of no use to you whatsoever. You've got a content rich site with relevant text about the keywords, which is tied to a large multi-page site on more relevant content. Despite this, Google hates your site. The same thing happened to me. I was just getting my campaign going well and every single keyword went to 1/10. I added even more content to the landing pages then opened a new Google account and started over. The campaign was slapped within a day and all keywords went to 1/10. Could certain niches just be hated by Google? Or maybe my domain was blacklisted so it can never get a good quality score now? Does Mark have anything else to say on the subject? There was a brief post ages ago but I am not aware of any update since then. I cannot see how the landing pages on the WOW site can still have high quality scores.
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Moderator
wollowra
Posts: 869
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20 Sep 09 3:36 am

 Just out of interest, what niche are you in?
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Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.

-- Robert Brault
 
andiputra
Posts: 3
Joined: 31 Mar 09
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21 Sep 09 12:13 pm

 If you still getting slap with Affilorama type sites, I guess you better follow Steve Clayton advice to change your landing page not linking to affiliate sites but as an opt-in page instead.
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Site Admin
michellerana
Posts: 1874
Joined: 05 May 09
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10 Nov 09 5:07 am

 This recently posted blog will give you some useful tips:
How To Avoid A Google Slap: 6 Tried and Tested Techniques.
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Michelle
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PremiumMember
cfiskey
Posts: 39
Joined: 04 Oct 09
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18 Nov 09 1:27 am

 I have been toying with Adwords for about a week now.

Most of my quality scores between 5 and 3 (a couple of 7's and a few 6's).

Here's what I have done:

- I took 1 product I am promoting and broke it down into 4 Ad groups - Review group, Author name group, and 2 "action word" groups.

- I have 4 different landing pages (I use AMA and spun an article 4 times - with a bit of touch ups here and there). Each article is 550-650 words. Each landing page has keywords of the corresponding ad group sprinkled through-out, with the main keyword used the most (H1, through-out article, Meta tags, image alt, links, etc).

- My ad's in Adwords use the same main keyword(s) I have on the corresponding landing pages.

- I am actually happy with my click-through rates.

Here's the question: How much of a factor does time play into getting a good quality score?

I am budgeting $25 per day - and have made 1 sale so far - and I am ok to do this for a while (I see it as an investment). But I don't want it to go on forever - and if Google never decides to give me a good quality score - then it's all for not.

It is frustrating when I go to the Google Keyword tool and type in a keyword I am using in a campaign. The keyword tool tells me the CPC is 8 cents - and in my PPC campaign I am being charged $1.35. Google is making some unbelievable GP off of us.

Anyway - I guess to restate my question - how much of a role does time play? And is there anything else you can suggest?

Thanks

Craig
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PremiumMember
cfiskey
Posts: 39
Joined: 04 Oct 09
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18 Nov 09 1:00 pm

 Most are now between 2 and 5. I am a bit confused myself how they calculate this...
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wollowra
Posts: 869
Joined: 14 Mar 08
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19 Nov 09 12:41 am

 I don't think time plays a big part in QS.
It's more about relevance.
I wish I had an easy answer for you but the mighty Google plays by it's own rules most of the time.

T
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Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.

-- Robert Brault
 
kenc138
Posts: 30
Joined: 14 Nov 09
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22 Apr 10 3:58 am

 Yes, same story here. No rhyme, no reason, just slapped a good site with relevant information that took me a month working day and night to build.

The best part about this whole thing is the 1st position in adwords for my keywords is held by an affiliate with a ONE PAGE site, that consists of nothing more than a table with affiliate links and a few blurbs of complete garbage content.

Yet, Google will slap a 40 page site with unique content that caters to the user and offers nothing but value and free content on a hotly searched niche.

I've tried everything that I know of to conform to Google's standards because I really do believe what Sean mentions about how to get in Google's good graces.

I have to admit though, my faith is pretty much gone at this point.

What concerns me more than this issue is the SEO issue. I'm completely paranoid that Google will not stop at only punishing my AdWords campaigns, but will also hurt me on the SEO front as well. This bothers me the most and it may be enough for me to stop affiliate marketing if I can't rank in SEO. At this point, I don't trust G to be fair.

I noticed that prior to the slap I was getting ~100 organic uniques per day. After the slap, I haven't had a single organic visitor. Is this just a coincidence?

Anyway, I'd be willing to redo the site, but I have neither the time nor the money to spare with so little assurance the problem would remedy.
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tshaffer
Posts: 31
Joined: 05 May 09
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13 May 10 8:47 pm

 I just got slapped totally arbitrarily for an entire website. Everything inside got slapped, I just upped my ad budget to $45 a day as well. %*$&!!
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Moderator
wollowra
Posts: 869
Joined: 14 Mar 08
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14 May 10 12:47 am

 Are you talking about your fitness gremlin site that got slapped?
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Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.

-- Robert Brault
 

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