According to Google Adwords I’m a pretty poor michael gray
Here’s a screen shot from my adwords control panel showing the quality score for my name:
According to Google I have a poor quality score for my own name. I had to raise my bid to $0.40 this weekend with the quality score bug but haven’t had a chance to drop it back down since then. You’ll also notice I’ve got some negative keywords to make sure I’m not showing up for irrelevant searches. Looking at the other sponsored listings we can also see that my high bid places me much higher than the other advertisers
The problem here is while I may be relevant for my name, I’m only important to a small niche of people, the population at large isn’t really interested in me so I have a really low CTR for my own name
Now where this logic falls apart is when I bid on Matt Cutts name I had a much higher quality score and paid less per click
I’m more relevant for Dave Pasternack’s name than my own
I’m more relevant Jason Calacanis name than my own
I’m more relevant for Ted Leonsis name than my own
So basically what’s happening is because I have a more common name than any of the people above, and there are other more “famous” Michael Gray’s I’m less important, relatively speaking, and forced to pay more for a keyword I that more accurately describes me than one which doesn’t. Sometimes the most logical solution to a problem isn’t the best one.
Tags: sem, google, adwords, search+engine+marketing
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{ 10 comments }
So if you want to rank for a more popular name you better be prepared to pay, if you think about it, this protects famous people and brands correct?
Excuse my ignorance, I do not play Adwords.
To a certain extent yes, but I think my point was more that the logic behind ranking and pricing is flawed.
Wow, so for “Rae Hoffman” I could probably get off pretty cheap eh?
>so for “Rae Hoffman†I could probably get off pretty cheap
That’s what the word is on the street (hides behind 4′ thick concrete bunker reinforced with titanium)
(looks at the bag of groceries MG forgot to take in his haste, sits down, smokes a cigarette and waits to see if MG starves himself to death or comes out)
(thinks to himself hmm maybe not eating for a few days will shrink my @ss down to a truly awesome size and shape and I’ll be able to sneak out)
(starts designing and marketing (via Digg) high tech helmets so poor Michael and others can go out and get their groceries)
>I’m only important to a small niche of people
I hate to break it to you, [i][b]but[/b][/i]…. (hhh)
>the logic behind ranking and pricing is flawed
A similar thing happens in the organic listings, Michael. A generic word such as “travel” or “real estate” would take insane amounts of work/money to get top rankings but, paradoxically, the conversion value of the visitors for that type of terms is low for most sites (branding aside).
True. But it has always been true in organic SEO that page relevance doesn’t get you top ranking. You need a collection of factors weighing in your favor. When I do vanity SEO (such as getting myslef to rank for my own, very common name John Andrews) it takes much, much more to rank than simply “being John Andrews”.
PPC is supposed to cut through that, and it does. But the price is under one corporation’s control. And that price can be adjusted at any time.
You can’t overpower my vanity SEO efforts unless you do your own, more powerful vanity SEO efforts. Organic SEO is a better value.
Interesting stuff… thanks for sharing. Although it’s a bummer for you personally, I actually don’t think this is a bad concept for Google.
I don’t really understand why the logic falls apart with the Matt Cutts example… it seems to me that your site would be very relevant to a good percentage of users searching for Matt Cutts, while it ironically might not be as relevant for those searching your name.
Anyway not trying to argue and DEFINITELY not defending Google’s quality score–just wondering if maybe I missed something.
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