May 2008 Archives

These days Ask.com seems to be flailing, desperately trying to control the bleeding of is its’ visitor base and PPC advertisers.

In the world of PPC search engine marketing, I have found increasingly less value from Ask’s paid search advertising program and stopped using their service altogether for several clients.

• If you cannot get a keyword to convert in 2008, one that easily converted in 2007, and especially during the keyword’s peak season, something is terribly wrong.
• Another issue I am experiencing is Ask double serving ads:  One is from Google, as a Content Network partner. The other comes from the Ask.com account. Ask should implement a stronger filter to discontinue this issue. Could it be on purpose? Might there be so few advertisers that they’re showing everything all the time, any time?
• Ask3D, which I have found little use for, does not seem to be working. The results fall far short and they insert sponsored ads between the natural results like little land mines.
• Spending my monthly budget on Ask.com is not the problem. It’s the part about getting conversions that keeps proving difficult. Folks click on PPC ads, do not find what they want then quickly bounce away.

The days of asking Jeeves the dumbest questions you can think of are far behind us. Even though, their new innovations look like watered down versions of Google results pages. It’s still better than MSN. MSN seems to almost consciously do the exact opposite of Google. But when it comes to pay-per-click advertising Ask.com keeps pushing me away.

Earlier this year rumors predicted that Ask.com might re-brand itself into a women’s focused search engine. Ask squashed that one; maybe they shouldn’t have. Choosing a narrower target audience might help them. Is it too late?  Hey Ask! Do us a favor. Run the idea past your execs again. Make yourself an authority then model your PPC display advertising accordingly.

Come on Ask. We can still be friends. Stop making me take my PPC advertising dollars elsewhere. Make me want to buy clicks from you again.

Oh yeah, one last thing. Bring back Jeeves. I have some questions to ask that guy.

Much like the mystery of the Big Mac’s secret sauce and Colonel Sanders 11 herbs and spices, we’ve all speculated what exactly makes up the closely guarded formula that determines Google’s PPC Quality Score.

• What are all the factors?
• How much weight does each factors carry?
• How can I exploit this to my advantage?!

Last week Search Engine Journal posted screen shots of tiny suspicious text beneath Google AdWords ads. The text icluded pScore, mCPC and thresh.

This spurred much discussion concerning what these terms mean and why they appeared. Google issued a statement to Search Engine Journal citing a "technical error." The company admitted the data displayed was indeed AdWords ranking information, but refused to share what the statistics meant. (Well obviously.) The discrepancy was not limited to any one country. This Search Engine Roundtable post shows the Netherlands saw AdWords quality score text too.

One day, after eons of research, we may decipher AdWords’s secret sauce. Perhaps it will simply fall into our laps. Who knows? It may turn out to be as simple as discovering the secret sauce for a Krusty Burger:

Let mayonnaise sit out in the sun. (Okay, okay...the Krusty-AdWords connection is highly unlikely.)

I suppose that it’s best for the AdWords Quality Score to remain a secret. It keeps the playing field level and encourages good sportsmanship and all that.

*Sigh*