Q. When is a Keyword, Not a Keyword?
 

A. when it's Inactive!

You Can't See Your AdWords Ad.

Why Not?

If your keyword Quality Score is Poor, your bid price will be inflated.

Quality Score was introduced to weed out people trying to game the system and building automated, rubbishy websites with no real value.

Google prizes relevance - always, and above all.

What's bad for uusers, is bad for Google, and they won't tolerate it. Even at the expense of income.

If you don't bid enough on the keyword, or at Ad Group default level, the keyword is flagged Inactive and you have to meet the minimum bid to revive it.

Quality Score has many factors, not all public knowledge, and Google introduce revisions to it all the time (like their patented Search algorithm).

You can turn on the Quality Score indicator in your ad group display.

Generally, if you have a decent and authentic website, with good, original content, inbound and outbound links, things will be ok.

But you must then carefully match your keywords, ads, and landing pages.

That's in everyone's interests.

You can always view keyword status by hovering your mouse over the magnifying glass to the right hand side of the keyword when logged in to your account.

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