Google upgrades ad quality judgment

Google is again visiting the health spa, this time for a make-over for its mechanism for judging ad quality.

This critical measurement is the tool which deciphers which ads should be placed next to which search results.

As it stands, the system uses an auction system to determine which ads to place next to search results, Google rates these ads on how much they pay, the click-through rate and more recently how quickly the advertisers page loads as well as using a static measurement of value in evaluating whether to display an advertiser's ad for a specific keyword.

The new system, announced by Google this week, will involve ad quality being judged at the time a user makes a search and will be tested on a small set of users before trying it with the majority.

Google said on its AdWords blog "We are replacing our static per-keyword Quality Scores with a system that will evaluate an ad's quality each time it matches a search query. This way, AdWords will use the most accurate, specific, and up-to-date performance information when determining whether an ad should be displayed."

The search engine giant also says, "We're replacing minimum bids with a new, more meaningful metric: first page bids. First page bids are an estimate of the bid it would take for your ad to reach the first page of search results on Google Web search."

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