A change to Google Adwords display URL policy

As of 24 February 2009, Google has refined it’s policy regarding domain names within a single Adgroup. This will mean for example, that the following are OK:

• adwords.google.com
• www.google.com

But the following domains in the same Adgroup don’t comply with the  new policy:

• www.google.com
• www.google.info

So, if you (like I’ve been doing!) split-test your Ads with different domains to see how this affects your CTR (Click-Through-Rate), you’ll have to think of an alternative method. Probably the easiest thing to do would be to (as Google recommends), create different AdGroups with the different Top-level Domain, but using the same keywords & match-types.

I guess this is going to be a hassle for some, but if you’re using something like SpeedPPC, you should be able to make the adjustment very rapidly.  I’ve only been using the software for a couple of weeks in the PPC campaigns I’m cranking out, but it makes a massive difference to how quickly you can get a test campaign up & running, no matter what Google decides to throw at us!  I’ll be reviewing SpeedPPC in due course, but just to say for now – it’s well worth the investment in terms of the time it saves & the efficiency with which you can create targeted campaigns, and that’s just scratching the surface of what it can do for your PPC marketing. Click here for more info about SpeedPPC.