Great, thanks for that!

Hi Keri,

Status of ads is 'eligible' with quality scores of 10/10 for brand terms (trademarked) and related brand terms (not trademarked).

Any idea how the twitter person established "stuck in eligible status purgatory"?

Thanks,Davinia

Hi Stephen,

Have tested using the Adwords 'ad preview and diagnosis' tool as well as logged in and out, removing cache and on different computers - no change, always at the bottom.

Hi Don,

I don't know what to say.... I can't stop giggling. There is NO WAY you get a better CTR with ads appearing at the bottom of the page. Like you I also have plenty of data to back that up.

This issue continues to occur for one of my clients.

Perhaps consider testing on smartphones only - I'd imagine more people would see the whole first page of results on a smartphone than they would on a desktop. I'd also recommend getting your SEO up to scratch so you are placing top of page for organic listings and Google Places.

Will let you know if I find anything new......but am still scratching my head as well.

Davinia

I appreciate your time, thanks.

Ads only display in New Zealand so you won't be able to see them, but thanks for the offer of PM anyways.

Am using legacy but didn't think this would cause any problems as enhanced is geared towards mobile. But it could very well be the cause?

Keywords are position 1 for all and have viewed placement by 'ad preview and diagnosis' and it still appears at the bottom.

So, I'm stumped!

Hi Zach,

Thanks for your reply.

Quality scores on all keywords are 10/10.

I've been running these campaigns for a year and only seen this twice (both in last 7 days). So am wondering if maybe something has changed with Adwords?

Thanks,
Davinia

Hello,

I'm running a sale promotion on a brand only Adwords campaign (I have the only account with trademark authorization) and have noticed that my ads are appearing at the bottom of the first page on Google.

This happened last week so I split the campaign into three Adgroups and that fixed the problem but today I'm running brand only and there is no way to separate them.

CPC has also increased dramatically. Normally it's less than 10 cents and now it's sitting at between $2-$4.

Has anyone else seen this? Any ideas/advice on how to stop this happening? It's playing havoc with my CTR and conversions.

Much thanks,
Davinia

It makes them unique yes but you might want to add a little more. If search engines don't think your meta tags are a true representation of the page or if they are duplicated across the site then the search engine will choose whatever content it wants, and often this isn't a compelling introduction to the website.

Private message me your URL if you like and I can have a look and see if there are any additional automation opportunities for your tags.

First see if you can automate the meta descriptions so they are unique. So create a rule that changes one or two words. Easy to use terms for the rule would be things like product names, product models, product size, category names etc.

Or, if the pages are so much the same would canonical tags be possible? This will communicate to search engines which one page is the priority page. That way your duplicate or light content on other pages shouldn't cause any penalties.

I've found it interesting reading this thread and seeing 'these' links from a different point of view. When auditing client sites I always recommend removing the web designers link from the footer (or at least from the homepage) because that link doesn't help my clients.

If you are trying to get a link from the client it is going to be much better for you if the page is thematically in line with your website. You'd need to think creatively for this because I'm sure if they had web design ability they wouldn't need your services so similar content will be tricky! A couple of ideas: Perhaps your clients have a section/page of 'random' information where you can supply a paragraph of text about your website and add the link there. Perhaps they have a cool graphic or infographic that you created and they wouldn't mind adding a paragraph under it in smaller font? Perhaps you could do a contra deal, a page about you for 2 hours labor.

But, to make a choice from your options a single homepage link is going to be more worthwhile than footer links and I wouldn't use the same anchor text for all of your links.

There is no SEO benefit in using meta keywords, however if you do use them and are keyword spamming (i.e. using more than 2-3 page specific terms) then you could be penalized.

I always recommend removing the tag completely from the website as it stops the client from spamming the tag at a later date and it reduces the amount of 'useless' code in the source code (Google likes a website that loads quickly!)

Provided the content on your lower level pages is unique by going for option 2 you can widen your reach on search engine result pages; leading to more traffic for your website. Rel=canonical will make lower level pages pretty much redundant for gaining ranking, so if the content is valuable (to a user and search engine) wouldn't you want to optimize that opportunity? I vote option 2

I would use the keyword in a keyword phrase and limit to 2-3 words, so something like "Man with osteoarthritis" or "Osteoarthritis affects everyone".

Remember alt tags are also used for usability, so if someone say has a computer that reads them the on-page content (e.g. a visually impaired person) you want your content to clearly and accurately explain what's on the page.

I'd go for a branded root domain and when creating the file paths use keywords separated by hyphens, example:

www.medicalcallcenter.com
www.medicalcallcenter.com/medical-call-center
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice
www.medicalcallcenter.com/healthcare-advice/colds-flus

With the information provided it doesn't appear to be a fair exchange and the SEO benefit to you, I'm imagine, would be minimal.

Branding benefits and network opportunities are limited to a footer link - who's going to find that? How will it grab peoples attention? Why don't you have a whole page about your business with a paragraph of text, links and images - this would be better than a footer link (for SEO) and better branding and networking. Make sure that the page isn't an orphaned page (i.e. needs to be linked from main navigation or a high level page).

If you want to rank for a new keyword and that keyword is not a primary target then you will most likely need to do this by optimizing a section or page within the website specifically for that term; otherwise you risk affecting your primary keyword ranking by diluting the goodness you have already created.

If the content across these product pages is similar Google will choose to index the one that it feels is most relevant, meaning the others won't rank well or at all. So with this in mind if you are trying to add a new keyword and your pages aren't unique then it's going to be hard to rank for the new term because search engines will have already marked it as a secondary/similar page to the one that is being indexed. You would need to build links to those pages to get it seen as a page with different content.

1. Ensure you have unique content across all product pages (targeting the misnomer by page or section)

2. Optimize those pages/sections using the misnomer only (title tag,

   header, alt tags, body copy etc)

3. Consider adding a page to the website that talks about the misspelling of the business name - make it fun and entertaining. It's a bit of a creative idea but it might help! Just don't be spammy.

4. Build links to your website using the misnomer name in the anchor text (use variations of phrases with the term); be sure that the links are from quality websites and that content is relevant to your/their audience.

5. Make sure you also have an automated XML sitemap (or that you are refreshing often), this can help communicate new URLs etc.

6. Perhaps you could run Adwords for the misnomer so you don't lose that income (as you mentioned). Once organic starts to rank you can remove.

Useful: It is possible that the misnomer is seen by Google as a synonym. To find out do a google search for your keyword and place this symbol ~ before it and with no space (e.g. ~apples). Look for the terms that are bold and these will be the synonyms.This could be useful in seeing how Google views your website and the keywords associated with it.

I'd focus on doing new content myself before outsourcing (provided it is relevant). Firstly I'd create a plan to work out what kind of content is needed and how much time/resource is required to produce it before going ahead, some ideas:

• Clients can provide a review of the design work you did for them, they may write the whole thing for you and in return they get a link back to their website
• Are there any current pages that cover multiple themes (i.e. target multiple keywords). Perhaps these could have their own pages (make sure you have enough content on both pages!). Doing this might only require 30% of the time to produce than writing for a new topic from scratch.
• Do you have time to blog (on your website) - make sure it's relevant to your website.
• Are there quick wins from pages under optimized; like does your homepage need more indexable content? What about your company page? Perhaps if your staff have specialties you can have a individual employee pages where the content is there bio followed by 'relevant' information about their skill set (keyword target) and how your company can help the client. Don't forget the call-to-action as well.
• Start up your link building again but maybe focus on content (try guest blogging or press releases). You can use www.odesk.com for quick and cheap content writers. I use them from time to time and provided I select the right person I'm pretty happy with the site.

Good luck,
Davinia

Agreeing with everyone here, text is vital. Perhaps the non-text sites that rank do so because no other sites compete with them meaning links alone are placing them up high (i.e. no SEO optimization). Imagine being able to add some nice text to a well designed page and quickly gaining great placement.

As well as permanent introductory text I'd also recommend adding text that will change out, like a placement for the hottest fashion accessory and another for the hottest designer. Have these change out regularly and also link through to lower level pages. This will also give people another reason to come back, just like a womens gossip magazine, people buy them week after week because they know content is updated often.

You should also inform Google of your change of address via Google Webmaster Tools.