Adwords Algorithm Update coming today

It appears that Google will be making huge changes to adwords today or tomorrow. As of Feb. 15, 2:30 PST I haven’t seen the update in our MCC but I expect it will happen shortly.

The rumors point to a couple of big changes.

The addition of a new quality score column in each Ad Group.
A overhaul of the adwords quality score algorithm.

This will have a big impact on adword users as quality score effects your ad position, and bid price. The idea being that as you adjust your ad copy and/or landing page, your quality score will change. So theoretically you should be able to better optimize your ads, and drive down cost per conversion.

What does this mean to you.

Probably a lot of adword customers paying more for terms then they did yesterday (short term).
Probably thousands of active keywords going inactive – this could be another shot across the arbitrage deck.
Definitely means that your landing pages will have to be of a higher quality.

Ultimately, depending on how actively you work adwords, this is probably a good thing, but if you are a passive user milking the long tail, this might mean a whole lot of additional work.

Look forward to hundreds of WMW posts about Google crippling their business and raising prices to float the stock higher. All we can do is wait and see, but at least Google has leaked the information so we know its coming.