Monday, November 13, 2006

Google's Landing Page Reviews

Today, through a live chat with a Google Specialist, I was informed that for one keyword, my landing page had been reviewed. This particular keyword went from .10 to .50. Naturally, I wanted to know why?

Because I practice what I preach, I've made sure since the beginning that if I create an ad about skateboards, the landing page is going to be all about skateboards. What have I been saying over the past year? Quality content is king.

Unfortunately for Google, the Internet is bigger than they can handle. So, they enroll software to check sites for them. Upon asking the specialist, this was my case. As a matter of fact, for my keyword, there is only one advertiser - with an ad that has nothing to do with the keyword!

According to Google, this is fine. As long as they pay the penalty. So, my question was - so it's okay to give the user a bad experience at the cost of the keyword penalty? The answer was - yes. Google thinks this is okay.

How would I do this if I were Google? I would provide a better, easier way for users to provide feedback to objectionable sites. Let them voice their opinion. Then, a scorecard would have to be kept. Much like accumulating tickets.

Imagine if our justice system was run by robots.

I can see where click-fraud could be a problem with a feedback system. However, the same system Google has in place to expose click-fraud could be used to track abusers.

Bottomline, Google needs to get humans involved when good sites and good users are penalized.