I am hearing major reports of a major “smack down” on Google AdWords advertisers who have been hit with major spikes in their minimum bids at AdWords. The increase in minimum bids seem to branch off the landing page quality score component, for virtually all advertisers who are complaining.

The landing page component was introduced back in December 2005. The first major smack down was the AdWords Landing Page Epidemic of July in 2006, but not everyone was impacted – many were but not everyone. Since then, we have seen thread after thread with individual advertisers getting hit with spikes (overnight) in their minimum bids due to “quality” reasons.

This is the first time, in a long time, that I have seen such a wide spread of reports on a quality score “slap” from AdWords.

We have two threads at WebmasterWorld, a few at DigitalPoint forums and a Google Groups thread with a comment from an AdWords representative.

All the reports, like I said, seem to stem from the landing page component of the quality score. Here is what AdWordsPro Sarah had to say at the Google Groups thread:

Yes, Google did launch the Page Load Time factor, but it doesn’t appear that this is the issue for this group. They all say that the landing page quality and relevancy isn’t being reported as quality.

Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld, DigitalPoint forums and Google Groups.