If you are purchasing an ad on Google using Adwords, remember that three of the five parameters that determines the positioning of your ad are subjective. The parameters may not be subjective to Google, but they are to you – you have no way of determining their value for you ad. This means Google has a lot of control of the position of your ad, even when you pay for it. This is in strong contrast to Yahoo, where I can actually purchase a #1, #2, or any top ten slot. Should you trust your ad to Google positioning?
There is a chicken & egg issue here. If Google tells you how they calculate those three parameters (or copyrights the equation, which makes it public), it leaves them vulnerable to those who would cheat with them. Keeping those variable equations secret protect them, at the loss of customers that want those before purchasing an ad.
The solution is simple – try an ad and see if it works. If it doesn’t, pull it. The bottom line is whether the ad works. This assumes, of course, that you know how to make the ad work. – it has to motivate for click-through and qualify those click-throughs. Don’t advertise a book you sell unless you qualify it as costing something. Otherwise, people will click through expecting something free.
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