I wrote a while back about Google's plans to implement a new AdWords algorithm that would consider the "relevancy" of a landing page in determining what the minimum bid price would be for a particular PPC ad. The new system has been in place for a little while now and feedback is pouring in via discussion forums. While the stated goal of the changes was to help Google weed out sites that were dealing with click arbitrage and various "free information" scams, the reality seems to be something completely different. While I usually don't give much credence to the "no fair" belly-aching that goes on in discussion forums, there seems to be something very different going on this time around...

The discussion taking place at the Digital Point forums is a great case in point.

The post starts off with a member "richa65" posting about his recent woes in being flagged as having a "poor landing page experience." The problem with him being flagged this way is the stats that he reports...

Now, anyone that knows anything about landing page conversion rates understands that 23-24% is not just a good conversion rate, it's an outstanding conversion rate. With that in mind, I'm personally finding it hard to believe that Google can justify the charge that he's delivering a poor "user experience" to his visitors. A poor user experience coincides with lousy conversion rates, not with higher than average rates.

That's where the problem lies...Google has no way of knowing what the actual conversion rate of a web site is. Only the publisher knows that. That leaves Google trying to decide, via an algorithm, what constitutes a "good user experience." Is it a certain amount of text? Is it a certain keyword density? How do you mathematically setup a system of judging something as arbitrary as content?

Keep in mind that Google revolutionized organic search results by bringing linking into the equation. After all, it's easy enough for someone to provide "just the right data" on a web site. That doesn't mean that it's good. Linking gave Google a way to judge content based on a third-party system of opinion. There's no way to do that in this case, which may mean that Google is wading into dangerous territory.

To put it another way, consider Digital Point's 'Mr. Critic's" analogy of the new system...

Now, there are a few problems on both sides of this theory.

On Google's side of things, it's obviously important to serve up quality results in both the organic and pay per click listings. If users find themselves clicking on links and getting junk, they are going to leave and go elsewhere. Thus, it makes sense that Google would work on options to ensure that even their pay-per-click ads are delivering users to high quality sites. The problem with this approach is that what Google considers quality and what tends to be most effective in a landing page are often not the same thing.

Advertisers know that the less distractions there are on a landing page, the more likely the visitor is to result in a conversion. That often means stripping out all content save the content that drives the user toward the desired action. It also often means stripping out the primary navigation. After all, you paid for the visitor to view THAT page, not to send them off on a journey through your site.

Google on the other hand has told webmasters that they need to add more content, more links and more "pages" on the landing page. In other words, webmasters are being forced into a position of crafting a landing page that is likely to result in LESS conversions in order to avoid paying hefty per-click fees to Google.

While it's likely that Google will continue to iron out the system over time, there also seems to be a shift in thinking right now that is driving PPC advertisers to spend more time on their organic listings and on competing PPC sites like Yahoo! and MSN. In other words, Google's zeal to force advertisers into delivering better "content" to visitors may result in those same advertisers seeing enough of a drop in ROI that they're forced to leave the PPC system. Ultimately, that means less money for Google and more money for it's competitors.

That doesn't really sound like the brightest long-term business plan to me.