Google is trying something new with its AdWords ads. It's also benefiting monetarily from an old problem. Keep reading to find out more.
Many if not most search engine optimizers handle more than optimizing their clients' websites. If there is any kind of search engine advertising campaign, SEOs help get that set up as well. After all, you're already optimizing the site for particular keywords, and search engine marketing is keyword-based as well. Thus a recent change announced by Google AdWords will no doubt be of interest. I'll also be covering some news related to an advertising practice that Google supposedly discourages, but makes the search engine a lot of money.
First, the AdWord news. It seems to be a reaction to the fact that people will search the web for different kinds of information. Sometimes you're interested in finding who has the best price for that must-have item; other times you might want to find out the best way to treat poison ivy. The first type of query is commerce-related, while the second one isn't.
Someone at Google figured out that the different nature of the queries might have an effect on how receptive the user making the query might be to seeing ads. The idea is that someone doing a search for information that is more educational -- say "breast cancer" -- might be less interested in seeing ads than someone doing a search for commercial information -- say "car insurance." If a user is less likely to click on ads, then there is little point in showing the ads; in fact, such users might find the ads annoying.
Coming to the sensible conclusion that relevance matters as much if not more for ads as it does for actual search results, Google decided to do something about this. As a result of this change, you might find that you have to make some changes to your AdWords ads to make sure your ads show up for certain keywords.
