PPC Blog of Henry Shelley - AKA The Shelldog

The Shelldog Blog is mainly focussed on paid search but I thought it well worth posting this consumer episode I had just yesterday - simply to underline the importance of search engines. 

BT isn’t well known for its customer service, and I wasn’t overly optimistic after I was placed in a phone queue for 20 minutes. When I eventually got through I was shifted from dept to dept, from Durham to India and back again, with absolutely nobody taking responsibility. 

Eventually, I was told to ring this number 08000223089. However, just to be sure I wasn’t being fobbed off entirely; I decided to undertake a brief search. 

These results say it all…

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So in the last two months or so MSN, Google and Yahoo have created tools that create your own ad text! Hallelujah! Now I can have adverts that possess all the common sense and laziness of an eBay sponsored link. 

What I love about this is that all three search engines must know what a terrible, ineffective function their respective tools would serve. Yet all were created within weeks of each other indicating a superb degree of unfounded competitiveness – a bunch of developers with nothing better to do than nitpick. 

Google on this occasion has reserved its usual bolshiness, and hidden the new tool at the bottom of all the Optimize Your Ads tools where it shall forever remain, out of embarrassment probably, in beta. 

On the contrary, the MSN tool maintains pride of place at the top of the Adcenter Labs product list with a ‘NEW!’ symbol aiding to denote its superiority – the best of a bad bunch (seriously, my black labrador Hero could probably be more useful than the search volume forecasting tool in the same list). 

Yahoo’s Ad Multiplier  also appears to promote the kind of laziness that will never benefit a search engine marketer. 

People, there are no hidden secrets worth looking for when it comes to writing creative en masse, just two golden rules: 

1. attention to detail
2. hard work

If either of these two rules is not abided by, then you are never going to come close to maximising the potential of your ads. 

Sorry - I’m a terribly negative blogger, believe it or not I actually love working in search – I just deplore laziness.

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I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall in the meeting, when it was discussed and decided that Google’s editorial content policy would extend to play for fun online gambling sites. What is particularly interesting is how the most effective method of enforcing the new policy was decided.

Now I would have thought that the most sensible method would be to block all ads being served for search queries containing offending terms such as gamble, betting, casino or poker (there is an argument to suggest those advertisers selling fireplace pokers or antique roulette tables would become disgruntled at such a notion). To me this method would have been the most viable - all it would take is a white-listing allowance to permit the antique and fireplace vendors’ ads serving for these queries.

What Google Says…& What Google Does

The guidelines state:

Advertising is not permitted for online casinos, sports books, bingo, and affiliates with the primary purpose of driving traffic to online gambling sites… where the primary purpose is ‘play for fun’ gambling, or ‘play for fun’ gambling or casino games of skill

They declare that it is the advertising where the ruling applies; I assume that it is this that lies at the core of Google’s enforcement method; i.e. address the individual ads that breach the guidelines rather than simply address the relevant queries/keywords that may return an offending ad. This would be an adequate if irritating argument for Google to use. Irritating because this is not how Google has gone about blocking potential ads in the past.

For a long time Google prevented all ads being served for the exact match search query poker on its Italian domain (before the new global guidelines were introduced). At that time it was the keyword poker exact match that was policed by Google. All other queries containing the term continued to serve ads. If Google had really been attempting to prevent poker ads being served they could have blocked the broad match term.

The Symbolic High Ground

By blocking the exact match only, all other poker search queries have continued to drive traffic (and Google revenue) in Italy. In essence Google merely maintained a sort of symbolic high ground rather than implementing an effective form of editorial enforcement: And it appears that this process has now been migrated to the remainder of the network.

Many advertisers that have had their ads removed are pretty dissatisfied with Google’s actions. Not because of Google passing the new guidelines, but the because of the ineptness and unfairness of the way it has been implemented. We know from the Italian domain of Google that there is potential to block ads for particular queries – surely this would have left advertisers far happier?

In The End

So what observations can we make nearly three months on from the change in policy? Well poker doesn’t appear to be the only exact match term that is now redundant, there is a handful more. Uncertainty in the market has prompted incredible volatility with many advertisers burning up daily budgets in a nervous last dance fashion.

Perhaps it would be far too cynical to agree with allegations pertaining to how certain sites may have slipped through the net. But the fact Google makes its own song and dance about its new editorial policy towards gambling, in such a short period prior to implementation– and then doesn’t fully enforce it – is pretty unnerving.

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After months and months of negative vibes from the blogging community towards the ever expanding expanded broad match, it appears that Google have responded with a futile effort at transparency in the form of the search query report.

Advertisers should approach all developments within Adwords with scepticism, after all if Google really had the intention of offering remnants of transparency, I can think of plenty easier and more productive possibilities. But Google’s real success here is simple.

By offering a response to the expanded broad match sham, in the form of a search query report, Google have almost managed to eclipse the issue. Sure, take a look at one of these reports and you may find a couple of clangers which will enable you to build up your negative keyword list. You can then rest easy, happy you have a textbook campaign running. In fact, lots of bloggers from the search community appear to be satisfied that Google have addressed this issue pretty constructively.

Of course you shouldn’t rest easy, because if you used third party analytics you would be able to see the mass of irrelevant search queries that your ads may still be being served for.

By being seen to address a problem Google have appeased the majority of those advertisers bemoaning expanded broad match. In reality the problem is still there, helping to line Google’s pockets with extra revenue. By maintaining the proactive guise Google have managed to sidestep/eclipse an important question of relevancy, with a tragically mediocre solution.

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