Google Soon To Lose Numerous Adwords Customers?, The new active/inactive system is wrong Options

[uchet]

Google continue to stun me with their lack of forward focus. The new Adwords system where a keyword is 'active' or 'inactive' is yet another money spinner for them that will send customers fleeing elsewhere.

I understand that they want to ensure that adverts are highly relevant when people type search phrases but they have so got it wrong with what they've set up this time.

The campaigns I run for clients are now swamped with inactive keyword phrases and Google are expecting me to raise the cost per click in line with what THEY think is right.

Here are a couple of examples of why they've got it wrong ...

One client has an advert group of only 4 keywords, all of which refer to the company name or the url, and these are highly visible in the advert that appears. And yet, Google have made them inactive, asking for an extra 1p to make them active. Those keyword phrases have no competitors in Adwords and were previously happy at 4p per click, so why the change? The advert text is highly targeted to those keywords and so there is no excuse for them to be made inactive.

Another example is a client who wanted his company site to appear in an advert when someone types his name - this previously worked fine. However, Google now wants 55p per click for the keyword to be made active, presumably because his name isn't mentioned in the advert text. However, if you search on his name in Google, only two sponsored results appear and they're both for Ebay affiliates and are highly non-relevant. So, EVEN if he was positioned above those, it would have previously have cost 6p per click so why is it that Google now want to charge 55p per click when there is no competition?

When I started using Adwords the system let us get away with keywords that weren't totally linked to advert text and I accepted that if that keyword didn't have a good enough CTR by 1000 impressions, it would be penalised - I had no problem with that. But now, lets see what happens under the new system ... I have a keyword phrase of 'manual handling rules' that would produce advert text of:

Risk Assessment
We help you to assess business
risks before they become problems

OK, 'manual handling' isn't mentioned in that advert text but the implication is that if someone is investigating manual handling rules then they may need to have their business assessed by a health and safety expert. That advert text would also equally be used if someone typed 'hazardous substances advice' and many other keyword phrases.

So, what do Google do? They instantly make it inactive and want me to pay 11p per click to make it active. If you type 'manual handling rules' into Google you'll see that there is very little competition in sponsored search so how can Google justify me having to pay so much per click?

To me, it's really clear what Google are doing - they want to push everyone towards higher click costs and to destroy those who use niche keyword phrases. I used to have clients that got good leads through niche keyword phrases, purely because no-one else optimised for them but now Google are playing God and deciding on what can and can't be displayed and for what cost.

My opinion? Small businesses won't want to play in this Google sandbox anymore and will either go to other pay per click advertisers, or will instead focus on traditional search engine optimisation - neither of which will be good for Googles profits.

The vast majority of businesses in the world are small businesses and with my clients alone I spend thousands a month on their campaign clicks. I am utterly convinced that one year ahead, Google is going to be in a pretty poor state and its market share significantly reduced.

I used to love Google, now they just make me sick.

Any thoughts?

Andy