Google introduces landing page loading time as a Quality Score factor for AdWords
Posted by Riccardo Campaci @ May 15th, 2008 in Search Engine Marketing
Online advertisers know how crucial the landing page is in order for a campaign to perform well: the landing page has to catch users attention through strong claims with the help of simple and incisive (clear and not confusing) design. But a good landing page cannot be just good looking: it should have some specific features, especially if you are going to run a campaign on Google AdWords. These features will determine the infamous Quality Score, the AdWords score that, assigned to a specific keyword used for a AdWords campaign, will contribute to set the actual keyword price.
Basically, as explained by Google itself, the Quality Score is influenced by several factors, like keyword’s click-through rate on Google, the relevance of the keyword to its ad group, the landing page quality, account’s historical performance, and other relevant factors. Among these relevant factors, lies Google’s recent feature, landing page load time, intended as the time needed by the landing page to load completely from the moment the ad is clicked on.
The reason behind this decision is driven by the use (often abuse) of redirects or interstitial pages implemented by advertisers: using these methods could be definitely useful for advertisers, but, at the same time, could sort bad effects for Internet surfers: never-ending loading time for landing pages, slow navigation or frustrating awaits in front of a blank screen.
So, starting in June, the landing page loading time will be influencing keywords Quality Score on AdWords. Google hopes that this decision could have concrete benefits for surfer’s online experience and for AdWords campaigns. As usual, Google is already helping advertisers know if its landing page loading time is good or not; this information is available on the keyword analysis page, as suggested by Google itself.
Obviously these are just suggestions: if you do not give a darn about it and you do not want to get rid of your 8 redirects on your AdWords campaign… OK, no problem! Just be ready to pay more for your ads to be displayed.
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Yes, good move indeed! they wasted no time whatsoever…