Recently, Google released a provocative new White Paper on AdWords Quality Score, setting the industry mildly abuzz. Google rarely releases supplementary information about its formula beyond the formal information in its core help files.
Perhaps Google is simply “clarifying” how Quality Score works in order to cut through a sea of misinformation. It was a helpful intervention by Google, perhaps channeling 1980’s legal services pitchman Joel Hyatt (“Somehow, in all these dusty old law books, an idea got lost; the idea that law is for people.”) Somehow, in all the metaphysical huffing and puffing about Quality Score, a core concept got lost: that keyword advertisers should test and iterate compelling, highly focused ad campaigns with a view to their attributed KPI performance.
Beyond that, though, Google seems to have subtly updated the actual Quality Score formula.