Black Hat PPC

Google recently changed its SERP’s so that they are now showing PPC ad’s not just on the top and on the right of their SERP’s but also at the bottom of the SERP’s as well. However, it wasn’t until last week that the BlackHatters had it confirmed by a Google rep that these ads also count as an impression if they are appearing below the fold.

So what does this mean?

We took a keyword, in this case ‘PPC’, to use as an example, where you can see three ads appearing above the natural results…

But as you can see there are no ad’s appearing on the right hand side since Google’s latest change to the SERP’s. However, if you scroll down the page below the fold you will also see two ads appearing at the bottom of the SERP’s…

So here is the thing…the advertisers www.searchlaboratory.com and www.channeladvisor.com are generating impressions everytime someone searches for the term ‘PPC’ but their ads are all the way at the bottom of the page. Now anyone who does SEO, will know that there is a massive difference in CTR between sites that appear in position 1 in the natural rankings and position 10, and you’d expect the same for PPC ads that appear at the top of the page and the bottom of the page.

These advertisers are getting really bad CTR for their ads being in these bottom positions, and as such this will have a detrimental effect on their Quality Score of their ads (as we know that CTR is a factor in QS.) As a result, these advertisers are going to have to bid even higher in order to get their ads into the top 3 positions to improve their CTR but if they keep their ads in these bottom positions for a while, then their CTR will keep worsening and the QS will get worse and worse over time.

Google is basically (in our opinion) forcing people to have to bid for the top 3 positions because there will be a negative effect on their account Quality Score by having ads in these bottom positions. You may as well turn your ads off all together if you are in these bottom positions we reckon!

We cant prove it, but it seems that Google’s new algorithm about detecting which ads go on the side and which ads go at the bottom is dependent on the number of ads that is being shown. We reckon if there are 5 ads or less, then you have ads at the top and the bottom, but it there are more than 5 ads then ads appear at the top and the side.

Its quite cunning from Google, because they are trying to generate the most income per keyword and by having ads at the bottom they are still in the auction pushing up the CPC’s of the ads at the top, but there is less propensity for users to click on these ads as they are right at the bottom of the page. As a result, users click on the top 3 ads which are paying higher CPCs and as a result GENERATES MORE INCOME FOR GOOGLE!

Brought to you by the BlackHatters.

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