On March 5th, Google came down hard on many many advertisers serving them the March 2008 Google Slap, where AdWords advertisers saw their minimum CPC prices sky rocket overnight. Hundreds of advertisers were impacted by the "slap," and we still have forum threads discussing ways to reverse it.
Yesterday, I noticed two different threads, one at WebmasterWorld and the other at DigitalPoint Forums reporting that Google has shown their kind side by reversing the Google Slap. In short, many advertisers saw their March 5th minimum CPC prices spikes drop down to previous March 5th prices. Here are some posts of joy from the threads:
Same here, most of my $10.00 "inactives" went way down in price! Enjoy it while it lasts...
I got three words unslapped today, and I followed every guidelines the annoying specialists told me. I didn't touch the campaign except for the landing page changes. Hopefully they will fully unslap my campaign by tomorrow.
Let's not do too much noise about this hehe.... hopefully Google won't notice it :)
Unfortunately, it did not last too long. About 9 hours after the first report of Google dropping the prices, people started reporting that Google has once again increased the prices on those keywords. I guess Google noticed? ;-)
AdWordsAdvisor said "notice what?" and added:
At this point, I chalk it up to the quality-based bidding system at work. I am not aware of anything else behind it.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld and DigitalPoint Forums.
