How does Google rank bidders on its Adwords program?

That’s a perennial question that Google never answers directly - and as a result, leads the web advertising industry a merry game ‘catch-if-catch-can’!

It also leads to much misunderstanding by those who can’t afford to spend their days (and money) researching the actual performance of Google Ads… and find their ads being ranked in strange ways - or not shown at all!

So when a senior figure in Google comes out and clarifies the Google Ad Auction process, and how the ‘Quality Score’ of your ad (and other factors) affect both the ranking and cost of your ad (and whether it’s shown at all)… it’s got to be helpful!

And the video below, presented by Hal Varian, Google CHief Economist, is one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of the importance of managing Adwords Quality Score and the effect on the Ad auction and your Ad placement.

Consulting Google’s Help pages is a bit like consulting the classical Oracle at Delphi - you never get a direct answer! But this is certainly the most easily understood explanation I’ve seen from Google on the auction process and ranking of your Ad.

If you’re not familiar with the basics of  Google Adwords, you can get a description of Quality Score here. But the video is clearer… So maybe Google does actually realise it needs to clarifyhow it’s rnking system works!

Happy Adword-ing
John Thornely

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Filed under: Marketing • Traffic Generation

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