I know this is a major accusation but Google is spiraling further and further into a “keep them in the dark” business model.

On March 6th they announced that load time is going to be factored into Quality Score.

This means that if you are running dynamic content, third party tracking, any javascript, or off-page calls you may be forced to pay a higher minimum bid.

How Google defends the decision:

Why are we doing this?
Two reasons: first, users have the best experience when they don’t have to wait a long time for landing pages to load. Interstitial pages, multiple redirects, excessively slow servers, and other things that can increase load times only keep users from getting what they want: information about your business. Second, users are more likely to abandon landing pages that load slowly, which can hurt your conversion rate.

Yes slow load times decrease conversions rates. It isn’t Google’s business how I run my site. If I have an interstitial page to track my traffic that is my business — third party tracking is a necessity because Google does not provide quality data. Every large client that I have worked with has been owed money in click audits. Combining this new Quality Score variable with the last destination url change and it seems to me that Google is building punitive channels to inhibit advertisers from making audits of AdWords numbers.

Google helps the rich get richer by basing Quality on money.

What exactly is Quality Score? It is a relative valuation for setting minimum bid and ad position .

Minimum bid is based on:

• The keyword’s historical clickthrough rate (CTR) on Google. (How much money they think they can get for the word based on expected clicks)
• The relevance of the keyword to the ads in its ad group.
• The quality of your landing page. (Content & whether your site loads quickly, see above)
• Your account history, which is measured by the CTR of all the ads and keywords in your account (How much money you have spent)
• Other relevance factors (How much money you currently spend)

Account history is a huge factor in minimum bid requirements. I have worked simultaneously on clients that spend in the 100′s per month and clients that spend 1000′s per day. Ever bid check that I do for new phrases leaves the smaller account with a remarkably higher minimum bid. Clients that have invoicing through Google also seem to be given more favorable bids.

Click through rates is, I feel, the most lopsided value. If you have a big brand you will win (CTR) over less known brands and pay less to do so — after your minimum bid is adjusted. Plus CTR is not a strong metric for most campaigns — generally advertisers want a conversion.

Then there is the new top placement. Top over the organic search introduced a hidden minimum bid, the minimum to appear on top. You pay more for the same position on top than if you are on the right. But they don’t tell you what that minimum is. Why you would tell someone one minimum cost but not the other?

The take home message.

If you are spending what you feel is a significant amount of money on Google you should be auditing your accounts before any change that is related to Quality Score. Many of the changes that have happened seem innocuous by themselves, but all of Quality Score changes are becoming hidden costs and favoring sites with big budgets.