A lot of advertisers feel this will have a negative effect on their advertising campaigns since this technique has been tested thoroughly in the past with clear results that capitalization in the display URL does indeed increase the click through rates of advertisements.

Why the change?  Google most likely comments that the changes will improve overall user satisfaction and compliments the layout of their search engine layout better.  Although personally, I would be more willing to bet that the change is because of advertiser abuse, distraction from organic listings, or because they want their sponsored links to match their organic listings more closely.

Tips to Help With the New Change

While you cannot get around this policy, the following tips may give you a helpful work-around:

1. Although you cannot capitalize your domain, you can capitalize directories and specific pages in the display URL (ex: newegg.com/PrinterCables).
2. If you have a website and want to advertise it on AdWords, you can purchase a new domain and use hyphens to separate the words in the display URL (ex: new-egg.com).
3. Use a domain with a short URL and use the directory to explain the page and use caps (ex: negg.com/PrinterCableSales).

You see, Google has dramatically change a lot of foreground settings (appearance, tools, etc.) as well as background settings (the way things work) since I first started the update. Anyway, I feel that Google has stopped making these changes and it is safe for me to release the updated version of GMoneyPro without it having sections in it that are no longer valid.

This new version of GMoneyPro is completely updated! Basically, I’ve sat down and re-wrote the entire thing, so there are massive changes to the everything within the guide. I think everyone will be pleasantly surprised at how easy I’ve made some of these strategies. If you can follow these step by step instructions you won’t have anything else than success (or at least that’s how I feel). Not only have I re-written the entire program, but I’ve also spent countless hours in the AdWords forums seeing what others are having trouble with and have worked in the solutions to their issues into the new strategies.

Anyway, the new GMoneyPro will also have a lot more content then the old versions. I’m still working on it and will be finished with it soon, but as of now the table of contents section is 4 pages long (so yeah there’s going to be a lot more information). When GMoneyPro is released it will be without doubt the most comprehensive up-to-date detailed guide on Google AdWords available. So don’t miss out on this. And as always, if you’ve ever purchased GMoneyPro in the past (even if you purchased it over 3 years ago when it was Google Money Pro), you will get this new version absolutely free.

Anyway earlier this month I noticed that they stopped labeling people as “Advertising Professionals” and have gone strictly to an experience level program.  Everyone starts off at level 1, but the more information you share and the more questions you answer, the higher your level becomes.  This has intrigued me because, as you can imagine, your AdWords experience is generally reflected by your experience level.  Everyone starts off at Level 1, and you can advance all the way to Level 20 and if your answers are helpful enough you become considered as a “Top Contributor”.

And since I have a guide out on how to achieve success with AdWords, it’s not very professional of me to go around with an experience level of 1.  So I’m seeing if I can get to Level 6 by New Years.  To make this more interesting, I’m going to make a bet that if I cannot get to level 6 experience by New Years, I’ll give anyone who brings this up a free copy of GMoneyPro (until I reach level 6).  So if New Years comes around and I’m not level 6, email me and I’ll send you a free version of GMoneyPro.  If you already have GMoneyPro, let me know and I’ll send you something else (like a free chat session with myself).

I’m currently at Level 4, so you may be thinking I’ll reach Level 6 in no time…but it takes as much effort to go from level 4 to level 5 as it did for me to go from level 1 to level 4!  And getting to level 6 requires even more effort!

So keep up with my status by going to: http://www.google.com/support/forum/user?hl=en&userid=17161904065540865260

Wish me luck

To become Individually Qualified, you must:

• Pass an AdWords Fundamentals exam with at least a score of 85% or higher
• Pass an Advanced advertising exam (there are three you can choose from) with a score of at least 80%, 75%, or 70% or higher depending on the exam you take.

To become a Google Certified Partner you must:

• Be Individually Qualified
• Spend at least $10,000 or more in advertising on AdWords over the past 90 days

So, now that these new rules are in place, I am now considered a Google Certified Partner.  For those of you who are wondering, I scored a 94% and a 90% on the exams I took.

Here’s the new logo they gave me:

In the mean time you can follow up with it at these forums:

http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/AdWords/thread?tid=1f26df7c7975f4b7&hl=en

http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/4222608.htm

Don’t worry though, because it is well worth the wait.  I wanted to post a picture of a new strategy I just stumbled upon which has dramatically increased my Click Through Rates for the search network.  Take a look at the picture below to see an average CTR of 29.70% for a particular AdGroup and a keyword with an amazing CTR of 57.14%!  And no, this image is not photoshopped.

You may need to click on the picture to see the full size.  Anyway, I’ll be sure to include this strategy in the new updated version of GMoneyPro which I am diligently working on.

People’s Concerns

• Instant search will display their advertisement one or more times when some of the search query matches their keywords, but the searcher really isn’t looking for their product (example, you’re advertising a dog training product using the keyword “best dog training”, your ad would flash on the searcher’s screen if they typed in “best dog” even if they were planning on searching for “best dog food”).
• The increase in impressions will decrease your CTR which in turn will hurt your quality scores.
• People will stop using Google because they are not use to this feature.

Details About Instant Search

1. Google created instant on so your impressions will only be counted in the following circumstances:

• The user clicks off of the search bar
• The user hits “Enter” or “Return” on their keyboard
• The user stops typing for 3 seconds (on complex searches Google requires the user to hit enter or click on a result)

2. The increase in impressions will effect every advertiser on Google, not just you, so I’m sure Google will take these into effect seeing as how (if your CTR is negatively effected by the change) every advertiser’s CTR would be effected.

3. Google did this so people would continue using their search engine.  They always strive to find bizarre and unique ways to keep people coming back to Google (Google Books, Google Earth, etc.).  You can easily turn instant on Off by clicking on it next to your search bar, and i’m sure Google is tracking how many people disable it.  If enough people disable it, then it will be disabled by default and would require you to manually enable it.  So I guess what I’m saying about this point is, Google would be the first to notice if it was negatively effecting their popularity, and if that became the case you would know because instant on would be turned off by default.  So as long as it’s on, it’s helping to keep/increase their popularity.

As far as internet marketing goes.  I wouldn’t be concerned with how this effects your account.  Any negative effects you notice from this will be noticed across 99% of all the other AdWord accounts in which case Google wouldn’t penalize you for their changes.

As always, feel free to post any recommendations for the new version.

• New Strategies
• New GMoneyPro re-structuring (to make everything easier to understand)
• Updated images reflecting Google’s design changes
• Updates with Google’s policies
• Removal of out of date techniques
• Addition of new more modern advertising techniques

If you want anything added to the new version of GMoneyPro, feel free to post a comment about what you would like added and I will be sure to include it.

So imagine my surprise when I noticed it didn’t receive any traffic over the weekend.  When I looked into it I noticed that all of my keywords were a 1/10 quality score.  Anyone who’s fairly experienced with Google AdWords will tell you that a 1/10 quality score means your site is breaking one of Google’s policies.  Knowing that this site wasn’t breaking any policies (since it had been running for 30+ months without any problems) I contacted Google and they told me someone would review my account.

Normally when you contact Google because of a drop in quality score, they usually send you an email saying “Our review staff has indicated that there is no problem with your account and the drop in quality score is justifiable…”.  But this time, I got a different response:

Whoops, Google Made a Mistake

Anyway, when I read the email, two things came to my mind:

1. Thank goodness I wasn’t out of town.
2. This site is on a private server that never goes down!?

Luckily, I have an account with Pingdom where they check all my sites every minute each day to make sure they’re not down.  So I decided to check the uptime report of that particular website for this month.

Yup, just as I had expected.  The website was up 100% of the time, meaning Google simply made a mistake.  Oh well, nobody’s perfect.