Hello,

I am puzzled over a message from Google Adwords:

These keywords are marked in the Status column of the Keywords tab below. Improve their quality through optimization, delete them, or raise the keywords' bids to the minimum bids indicated. (Raising the bids to at least the minimum will activate the keywords.)


I ran a campaign since yesterday, paying £0.15 (CPC), and mine was the ONLY advert showing up on Google under that keyword. But now I am getting this message of an inactive keyword for search. If I type in that keyword on the Google search, there are no NO ads, not even from others. Google is now asking me to raise my bid to £0.20 (CPC).

What triggers the sudden increase in the requested CPC when there are no other advertisers showing up for that keyword on a Google search?

J.Neuhoff

Past history (other advertisers) + your website quality relevancy score I believe. I admit it is slightly odd and annoys me as well

Honestly, sometimes I think Google just decides that if no one else is bidding there it must not be relevant. I had that same thing happen to me once before and it was VERY relevant. Google slammed me as teh only advertiser there and raised my bid prices over and over again.

Now, there are 20+ advertisers in this niche and they are paying astronomical prices to be there. Sounds like money to me...I can smell it Google. :-)

try increasing your landing page relevancy, that may help. also is your keyword in your ad copy??