Google Releases Bid Position Filters

As I’ve said in the past, I have to keep my mouth shut, because I learn a lot about what the search engines are doing, whilst under strict Non-Disclosure Agreements. Luckily, thanks to Barry at Search Engine Watch , I can start talking about Google’s new bid to position filters.

So basically, what the filters do, is allow the advertisers to select which positions on the search engine they want to appear on, and if their AdRank does not allow them to earn a particular position (assuming it’s out of range), then their ad will not be displayed lower down.

For example:

I am bidding on [Shoes] for ThatShoe, and I only want the advert to display in position 3 or 4 on Google. If I input this requirement into the campaign with a max CPC of $1, and the bid required for position 4 is $1.01, my ad will not be displayed at all, even at lower positions, as it would normally be displayed, if position 4 was outside my bid range (assume we ignore quality score for now).

The reality is that it is very difficult to tell which keyword convert well, and at which positions, because Google’s report give us an AVERAGE position for a keyword over a period of time, and they do not pass any variables to us, designating at which position the keyword was when it was clicked.

I have requested this functionality from Google, and hopefully they’ll look at it – but I am only one person. Please send them emails as well, requesting this functionality to be included in their Valuetrack tagging system, so that everyone can benefit from positional analysis and positional bidding (which is a nice idea, but impractical without the right data).