Quality score, check your keywords today...

I have been using Adwords for over 2 years with good returns and seen many changes to the interface over that period. Some of the changes have been a slight hinderence but in general there have always been work arounds. That is until today when i logged into the account and found out that they have had a "quality score update...."

I have 25 campaigns (the max), over 120 ADGroups and god knows how many keywords. I monitor the performance every week and have historical data to analyse any changes in bids, adds, CTR etc.

I phoned google about their new update and "tweaks" to the algorithm used in their adwords quality scoring (btw i only know about the update BECAUSE i phoned them). Basically I shall take an example of what has happened and affected all my adgroups and campaigns:

I had some keywords performing really well until last week when google decided to stop showing my ads for these specific words (oh and btw they don't have an automatic email to notify you of this like they do for any 'disapproved ads', which means if you don't check your account regularly, or every other day, you wouldn't know!)

The keyword in question has historically performed very well with a CTR up to 10% (yes that is very good!) and I've only evre had to bid a MAX CPC of 12p. So when this keyword was stopped by google for "quality reasons" they recommended that I bid £5.50 to activate it again.... yes thats right i need to pay 43 times the amount to have it show again.....

How does their quality score work on keywords? Well after a debate of how ludicrous the "suggested" keyword bid was I was further enraged to find that they also don't really take into account a competitors bid for this quality score. Instead it is based upon, historical performance, the page you keyword goes to, the text in the ad and your CPC.

I can put a big fat tick next to all these issues:-
1) Historically it has performed an avg of 6.4% CTR!
2) It goes to a landing page specifically for that keyword!
3) I use dynamic text insertion so that the keyword appears in the ad.
4) My MAX CPC has satisfied google quality score for the past 6 months so why change? My impressions and click throughs haven't!

The real problems then are:
1) If google do not really take into account a competitors bids for the quality score where the hell does it get the "suggested" MAX CPC for? Let me remind you again that it went from 12p to £5.50!...
2) Why do google not notify you of when they pull any of your keywords? As an advertising bureau/service provider surely this is illegal?....

Personally, I'm rather miffed at the lacklustre response and suggestions by them considering the amount we send every month!

What made me laugh (sarcastically i might add) was that i was advised to create an ad specifically for every individual keyword so that it mentioned that actual keyword (even though our current ads generically cover the keyword anyhow...) Well I'm certainly not going to go through the 200 odd keywords that have been stopped.... besides, surely that's what the "dynamic keyword insertion" is all about?

My point is this... check your account today and make sure that your keywords haven't come under the hammer by this "new, tweaked so we get more money out of you quality scoring keyword up my easter agg *** system"....

Any comments you've got, feel free, as I've already filed a complaint with google adwords...

Oh and a belated happy easter!