Hope you had a good Christmas.

Mike and I were running adwords search traffic to our web site. Google came through and slapped the campaign. I have modified the ad, changed the landing page, but it still won’t run. Am I better off scrapping the domain and starting over or is there something else I can do?

Thanks,
Brianne

Hi Brianne -

I had this happen to my campaigns too. However, the main keywords that got dinged were the brand related keywords. The more generic keywords are still ok and the content traffic is still steady. Did you experience this as well or did you get the full blown slap where it appears as though a human went through and disabled your entire account?

In any event, here is my advice:

- Scrap the domain. I’ve battled with this a lot. On several occasions I spent hours and hours and money revamping a slapped domain. I added articles, content, blogs, etc. but could never revive a slapped domain.

It seems as though Google has handed down a life-sentence for that domain.

- Set up your landing page on a new domain. I’ve had better luck the second time around if I select a very keyword rich domain. Specifically, if you look at your heavy volume keywords and then select a domain with those keywords in it. That usually goes a long way with your quality score.

You may also consider this:

(a) add content to your landing page – on your new domain. Specifically, I suggest adding tons of content below your main above the fold landing page area. This usually won’t hurt conversions – and may actually improve them – and is adhering to quality guidelines. So, for instance, perhaps write a half – dozen paragraphs and place that content below the fold.

(b) consider installing a wordpress blog on the domain too. This shouldn’t take too long. I can’t find where this helps in the quality score guidelines, but I’ve seen it improve things. Considering google’s love affair with Wordpress, it may be worth the 30 minutes it takes to install it and post once in a while.

(c) upload your new campaign with adwords editor. I’ve seen my *initial* quality scores be higher by 2-3 points when I use the editor as opposed to the keyword tool or a manual upload. What happens after that is unpredictable, but at least you’ll start off with a slight advantage.

I hope this helps. Don’t be afraid of the slap. Most Adwords marketers consider it a badge of honor these days

-Ben