Redirected URL in AdWords

ozchris · #1 (**permalink**) 09-17-2006, 10:22 PM

Anybody got experience with redirected URLs in AdWords?

A site based around the URL of the business owner, so owner.com.

He has three main arms to his business, say blue widgets, pink foos, and green fahs.

To make it more attractive to customers, he got a second domain, say bluewidgets.com, and redirected it to owner.com, so anyone looking for bluewidgets would think he was pretty relevant.

The AdWords account has several campaigns and ad groups.

Two ad groups were focussed on blue widgets, so the ad had display URL and landingpage URL using bluewidgets.com/landingpage.htm

This morning Google disabled those two Ad Groups with the reason Inaccurate URL.

I've read the Terms, and given that we aren't sending customers to a different site, and the display and landing URL match, it should have been ok.

It's a permanent 302 redirect from bluewidgets.com to owner.com.

It seems no different to people buying say .com.au and .com domains, redirecting one to the other, and displaying .com.au for Aussie visitors.

Any comments?

dburdon · #2 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 05:30 PM

OZChris,

a pay per click client of mine employed a rival SEO agent a that apparently guaranteed them a no.1 in Google. The client's site was at the time ranked 3-5 for several key terms in Google.

The new agent set up a very basic Adwords campaign that sent traffic to new sites created especially for the purpose. These new sites had been on page optimised using keywords and tags. When the Adwords ad was clicked it landed on one of the new sites and redirected to the original client site using a meta refresh. Within weeks the original site climbed from 3-5 in the SERPs to straight no.1s.

Maybe Google thought you were attempting to pull a similar wheeze.

**incrediblehelp** · #3 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 05:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dburdon

a pay per click client of mine employed...

Interesting this issue is discussed and happening so much. Dburdon has posted this exact post at least a half of dozen times over the past month on WPW on various threads.

dburdon · #4 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 05:54 PM

Incredible,

apologies if you're getting bored. I was waiting like a praying mantis for the subject to crop up again.

**incrediblehelp** · #5 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 06:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dburdon

apologies if you're getting bored.

Hardly I am interested as well. Have you emailed the Google AdWords team and asked them on their position?

dburdon · #6 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 06:06 PM

Jaan,

it would sound like sour grapes if I complained directly to Google. I had a well crafted Adwords campaign with a long run average CTR of 18%. The client couldn't understand that crude replacement campaign would cost them more in the long run.

Although the technique is probably a breach of Adwords TOS, it does seem to work. In the short term any way.

Rational Beaver · #7 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 06:20 PM

Ozchris, I have encoutnered this problem several times in the past month or two. It seems that Google has tightened some of their policies regarding display URLs due to various sneaky activities that people have been engaging in (such as the above technique).

However, if you can get in contact with an Adwords rep it is very likely that they will be able to reactivate those ads. Because the advertiser is the owner of both domains and the URL is a standard redirect he should be all right. At least, that was the case for me.

jrb@w3f.com · #8 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ozchris

Anybody got experience with redirected URLs in AdWords?

A site based around the URL of the business owner, so owner.com.

He has three main arms to his business, say blue widgets, pink foos, and green fahs.

To make it more attractive to customers, he got a second domain, say bluewidgets.com, and redirected it to owner.com, so anyone looking for bluewidgets would think he was pretty relevant.

The AdWords account has several campaigns and ad groups.

Two ad groups were focussed on blue widgets, so the ad had display URL and landingpage URL using bluewidgets.com/landingpage.htm

This morning Google disabled those two Ad Groups with the reason Inaccurate URL.

I've read the Terms, and given that we aren't sending customers to a different site, and the display and landing URL match, it should have been ok.

It's a permanent 302 redirect from bluewidgets.com to owner.com.

It seems no different to people buying say .com.au and .com domains, redirecting one to the other, and displaying .com.au for Aussie visitors.

Any comments?

Use a 301 as a 302 is really temporary.

dburdon · #9 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 06:31 PM

Why not use a branded display URL but direct (note no re)to the destination URL of choice. Then you're within the TOS.

ozchris · #10 (**permalink**) 09-19-2006, 10:50 PM

Hi guys,

Sorry I took so long to reply. I was waiting to hear Google's response, as I had emailed them.

Just last week we'd had an email offering personal support, as we spent so much. So I used that email address. Theoretically better service.

Meanwhile I edited the ads to use owner.com, just to make them active again, as it is peak season for that site.

After a few hours I noticed one of the ad groups was inactive again. Someone (I assume Google) had been updating the URL to point to my desired URL, but had forgotten a small matter of a dot after the www. Maybe they were about to fix it, but I beat them to it. They fixed one of the two affected ad groups.

This morning, after 24 hours, they did reply and said it was within terms. A fairly standard letter. So I fixed the other ad group.

I'll get our "redirector" to change it to a 302.
I had done a search for adwords redirect before opening this thread, so sorry I opened a new one.

I'm assuming a young eager Google reviewer disabled us thinking we were trying to mislead people.

The whole point of displaying the preferred URL is to make it more attractive to visitors.

Thanks guys

csutoras · #11 (**permalink**) 10-07-2006, 03:45 PM

You know there is a visible URL and a location URL..

Why not just word the display url however you want it and then have the actual destination URL be the main page.

This way all your ad viewers will see the differant urls but will end up on the same page that you are jumping them to anyhow.

?

ozchris · #12 (**permalink**) 11-09-2006, 06:05 PM

Because when there is a difference between the display and destination URL, AdWords tend to cancel your ads.

They've done it three times now.

And on the surface, ours are the same.

We have .com.au redirected to .com, our original site.

Because we are advertising to Aussies, we use .com.au in our ad display and destination url, and the user gets automatically redirected to .com when they click. It gets better CTRs.

Three times, when I tweaked an ad, changing words or created a new ad group, AdWords support have paused the ad the next day, with reason "display url not matching destination".

I sent off an email/phone call saying it is the same site, and a day later they turn it back on again.

It just adds another layer of fuss to AdWords management.

They are definitely paying more attention to landing pages these days.