On the heels of new Comscore data proving their search dominance once again, Google has announced new updates to their search query tools.
Chief among the improvements are real-time evaluation of searches, which will help pull the most relevant ads for searches at the exact time they are made. By analyzing search data live Google can provide the ads most relevant to a search at that exact moment, taking into account location, language, and timing.
“In the past, we essentially measured quality score once per day,” says Nick Fox, Director of Product Management at Google. With real-time analysis “we’re able to make that assessment much more granular.”
Real-time evaluation will also allow advertisers to fine-tune their search capabilities. Daily assessment would formerly categorize keywords according to their average utility. By evaluating effectiveness of keywords on a case by case basis, rather than an average at the end of the day, the new approach will allow Google to eliminate “inactive for search” keywords that were given to words with ad quality scores too low to reap a return for advertisers.
In a response to advertiser criticism Google has replaced the “minimum bid” metric with a “first page bid” option. That way, advertisers can see how much it will cost to place their site on the first page of search results — a more relevant space than ending up page 7 of a search or somewhere that viewers rarely click.
Fox says that the “goal of our ads is to be higher quality than our search results” and says that the new changes will provide Google with more agility to get closer to those efforts.
