I think Google's Traffic Estimator Tool is highly misleading if not a scam.

For example, for the keyword 'Linux' the traffic estimator shows the following:

Average CPC: £0.06 (at a maximum CPC of £0.10)
Estimated clicks per day: 70 - 106 (at a daily budget of £10.00)

This works fine for a day or so, (except it only ever results in no more than 10 hits) and then for no apparent reason Google Adwords complaints about the keyword, as follows:

keyword(s) are currently inactive for search.
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.)

In this case, Google asked to increase the CPC bid to a five times higher minimum bid! Even when the target page uses the keyword all over the place, including in the HTML title, it won't make a difference.

Hence it is my impression that Google tries to lure you into the Adwords business with cheap offers in its traffic estimator, and once the user has started his campaign, Google hits you hard by dramatically increasing the CPC price for no apparent reason. This is worse than a gambling casino!

J.Neuhoff

It is only an estimator

It's probably the quality of the landing page.

What chrishirst said.

I've never used Adwords before (I have no good reason to do so), but I do know from other Google products that provide approximations and estimations that they're inaccurate at the best of times.

From the sounds of it, you've keyword-stuffed your landing page and the overall ineffectiveness of the page is what's causing it, as Hirst said.

What's the landing page?

Thank you for your replies.

I have tried several campaigns, the one I mentioned was just one example. In each campaign I've made the same observation: Google's traffic estimator makes a highly optimistic forecast, whereas in the actual campaigns it usually is only between 1/5 to 1/10 of the expected traffic. My keywords used are usually associated with high-volume traffic, so even with lower CTRs I'd still expect enough clicks according to Google's traffic estimator.

However, it seems that a lower CTR triggers higher CPC minimum values to stay in the keyword bidding process. According to Google, a better keyword quality should lower the CPC, but I have yet to find more information about the so-called 'quality'. Merely using the keywords in the ad and landing page doesn't seem to do much.

https://adwords.google.com/select/si...t-awb-070706_4

http://adwords.blogspot.com/2006/07/...ty-update.html

Adwords blog search
http://www.google.com/search?sitesea...lity&submit=Go