I’ve Been Slapped By Google…What Now?

Posted on 23. Mar, 2009 by Willie Plasencia in Business

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My PPC ads were slapped by

Google.

I didn’t see it coming…

Hey guys, Willie Plasencia here hanging at the fire house. Just checked out my adwords campaigns today and just found out that I just got “slapped by Google“.

OUCH!

Like most online marketers, I do all of my Pay Per Click marketing with “Google Adwords” and use it to direct people to my landing page . In return, I am obligated to pay Google every time someone clicks on my ad.

A great marketing strategy that;

If done right…will get you many leads.

If done wrong…could make you penniless.

So as to avoid the possibility of being taken to the cleaners I knew I had to first spend some money on some courses.

I purchased Perry Marshall’s “Definitive Guide to Adwords“and JimYaghi’s “PPC Domination Course“. Two courses that came highly recommended.

I dedicated about a month and a half of my time to focus all my attention on these courses. Of the two courses, Perry’s e-book, was the toughest. As a matter of fact, I suggest you  have a pillow with you just in case you pass out with boredom. Not very exciting…if you get my drift.

On my first read, I have to admit I was  clueless as to what he is talking about, but backing  it up with Jim Yaghi’s PPC Domination course, it all started to make  sense.

Going through these resources three times each it was only then that I felt comfortable enough to start getting my feet wet. It felt good knowing that I was  playing with the big boys.

My first week was awesome. Setting up campaigns was  easy along with writing some decent ads.  I must have chosen good keywords because after the weeks end, I was on the  first page of Google in 2 out of the 3 campaigns.

Got about 20 clicks which converted into 6 leads for just under a dollar a lead . I thought I had done pretty good for my first time.

Then BAM! I got “slapped” by

Google.

Into my second week I immediately new something was wrong. The number of impressions had dropped and almost immediately my quality score had bottomed out.

For those of you who do not know what a “Google Slap” is let me try to explain. The term “Google Slap” refers to the way Google penalizes you for not having a  landing page of their liking.

In other words…Google is all about pleasing the user or searcher. Its goal is to give the user  the most relevant and useful content. So as a way to constantly make sure that they deliver good relevant content they go around and “slap” those landing pages that they feel are not up to par with their ever changing criteria.

Why slap me?

Rumors have been going around a while that Google was going to do this. Apparently they are tired of too many replicated sites that are not delivering value and unique  content.

Unfortunately, MLM home based businesses and Affiliate Marketing websites have been targeted the heaviest. According to Amit Mehta, an Internet marketing blogger,

“Google is really opposed to these thin affiliates marketing sites that people put up just to run advertising on. They want to promote  real websites or people with real businesses”.

And since us online marketers are under the law of Google, you really don’t have any say on the matter.  So before you know it you are given a low quality score, which is the accumulation of keyword’s CTR, ad text relevance, keyword relevance and landing page relevance.

So what does this mean for me?

Well, according to Jim Yaghi, he has always professed you should treat your business as a business. That in order to be long term in this industry, you must create your own landing page.

Specifically making it clear that we should think like Google and deliver valuable, unique, useful content to every single searcher.

Adding, that setting  yourself apart from the herd and adding more weight to your landing page factors creates uniqueness to you and your business. The searcher will be more receptive.

It was also recommended that I should pause my “poor” quality score keywords. This may slow the bleeding, so to speak. I am to leave my “ok” quality score keywords so that my overall score improves. If and when they turn into”great” then I can slowly re-introduce my poorer keywords.

Finally, others have said that I should pause my campaigns on Google and go onto a other major search engines like Yahoo or MSN. Though this will not directly fix my problem with Google , it will still give me the opportunity to run my campaigns.

Though this has put a wrench onto my PPC plans I will do as what is recommended and let you know if it helped. In the mean time, keep those ads going.

Thank for nothing  Google.

Willie Plasencia

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