AdWords minimum bids surge?

Well, we should’ve seen this coming. With all the reports of click rates going down, and of Google’s financial ‘difficulties’ (they’re still stinking rich), it was bound to happen.

I can’t confirm or deny any of this, but there’s been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about something funny that happened yesterday. It seemed that many advertisers complained of a sudden spike in the minimum bids for their best keywords.

You can view more discussions about this topic here and here.

Google prices their minimum bids based on a number of factors. The primary variable is something called the Google Quality Score which takes into account both the profitability and competitiveness of any given keyword.

So far, I haven’t heard anything formal from Google regarding this spike. But it’s just another reason to keep an eye on your campaigns, and to make sure they’re well-structured.

I’ll keep you updated if I hear anything.