Valor Talk

Has anyone experienced problems with Google Adwords setting the minimum bids (for Valor product related keywords) to astronomical rates? I built a new site and created some Ad Groups, and all the keywords (matched to relevant landing pages) are "Inactive for search - Increase quality or bid $10.00 to activate."

Here is an example landing page: http://www.kylesecurity.com/brand/C+%26+H+Lures/brandid.717/top.1/

Example keywords:
[bass lures]
[c and h lures]
[c h lures]
[c&h lures]
[fishing lures]
[trout lures]

Google hasn't been any help so far and I'm at a loss. I have other sites (Kyle Music) with similar architecture that don't have this problem. Any suggestions or help is greatly appreciated.

 Thanks,

 John Kyle

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John Kyle

Kyle Security

http://www.kylesecurity.com

Hi John,

I went into my Adwords account and created a new campaign for the key phrase 'fishing lures' and was able to complete the process using a bid of 25 cents.  Your issue may be a result of the Google spider not ranking your landing (ad destination) page very highly for the key words/phrases that you wish to bid on.  Google's algorithm for Adwords has been changing a bit recently and more changes are anticipated due to Y!'s announcing upcoming changes to their PPC system.


With the exception of two pages, your entire site seems to have gone supplemental on the google index.  This has been the case for many of valor's customers.  I have a thousand pages that went supplemental, however, Google seems to be moving a few dozen back into the main index each week.


Don't expect perfect explanations from the Adwords people because they do not interact with the spider/index team and it actually takes Google a few weeks to let the Adwords team know about changes effecting Adwords customers.

Al

 

Al,

Thanks very much for your helpful response. I was not even aware of the Supplemental Index issue. What I can't figure out is that landing pages on http://www.kylemusic.com/ don't have this problem... that is, I can set low minimum Ad Words bids, and they are in Google's main index as well. Both sites are the same underneath - same architecture, database generated, but with "friendly" URLs - and I can't figure out why Google would treat them differently... that's what led me to wonder about the Valor products (combat knives/firearm accessories a no-no for Google?) But this apparently isn't the case if it isn't happening for you.

I'll investigate further... my next guess is inadvertent duplicate content, which I've rooted out of Kyle Music, but may be appearing in Kyle Security. It's still brand new, I don't even have the categories set up correctly yet. Once I get things aright, it sounds like Google SiteMaps is a good way to reintroduce my site to Google. Have you any experience with it, especially with dynamic pages?

Again, your expertise and generosity are greatly appreciated!

John

 

 

 

 

 

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John Kyle

Kyle Security

http://www.kylesecurity.com

John,

There seems to be no relationship between Valor's products and Adwords willingness to accept key words/phrases.  However, I have seen different issues between various Adwords accounts.  Your problem may just be a 'glitch' that your Adwords rep needs to fix.  It could also mean that there are changes on the horizon for the Adwords spider.  Not changes to exclude specifics 'combat knives/firearm accessories', just changes.  A while ago, I tryed to create an ad with the key word 'picnic'.  The Adwords system insisted that 'picnic' was a trademark and that I could not use that word.  That bug has since been fixed.

I do not use dynamic pages.  I have witnessed sites that have success in the organic SERP's with dynamics.  However, I am not convinced.

I suggest that you research sitemaps over at the Google Webmaster Tools forum.  I had success after removing a sitemap .xml, (although my case was unique) at the advice of other webmasters suffering from Googles' supplemental hell.  There is much evidence to suggest that you not publish incomplete sites or e-commerce sites with thin/duplicate content.   I have read a lot of posts by webmasters who's sites were de-indexed and had to wait 6-12 months before Google would start returning their pages to the index.  BTW, as far as Valor's products, I only sell fishing tackle.

Al
 

Personally, we boycott Google to the greatest degree possible. We certainly won't spend any money with them. They refuse to allow advertising of too many of the items that we sell. We could advertise the items they do allow, but on principle we don't. So while we don't reach as many potential buyers by using only Yahoo, at least they allow us to advertise anything that's not actually illegal.

Your "principle" is flawed. Google is where its at and you are missing out on a lot of sales by choosing to "boycott" them. Why go against the grain? Because you don't like some of googles rules? Well a fool and his money never part they say however you  are missing the boat.

A man who abandons principle for profit is not much of man.

google would not allow the adsense script to run on my domain name due to the selling of aiguns!!

Anybody else have that problem?

I believe the saying goes "A fool and his money soon part", and it's being used a bit out of context here  :)

When I was first starting up my website a couple of years ago, I had the same problem with google, specifically relating to airguns being advertised on my site.  So, I did the easiest thing I could do at the time and removed airguns from my inventory.  As a fledgeling online business, I think it's nearly impossible to reach any level of success without spending a few dollars on PPC advertising.  That being said, there are several PPC alternatives to Google, the biggest being Yahoo! Search Marketing (Overture).

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Rick