SEM 101: How Google Defines The Search Results And Its Order

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SEM 101:
How Google Defines The Search Results And Its Order

To rank high on Google, you can either pay with time or with money. If you would like to understand how Google determines the order of search results and is also interested on learning about the techniques to rank higher, this article below is full of information that can help you.

Basically, there are two ways that you can start ranking on Google: You can either pay with money or with time. To be placed in the top positions of organic search results, it takes time, it’s necessary to create a lot of content focusing on the keywords you want to rank for. Companies take years to climb their way to the highest positions because the competition is extremely high. And that is why a lot of businesses invest in paid advertisement, also known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM). SEM can open a world of opportunities when it comes to promoting a service or a product of a company by targeting people who are already looking for it.

To have a better understanding of how SEM works, it is necessary to think of it as an auction. There are countless searches on Google daily, the auction is what allows Google to define which advertisers should appear in the results and in which order. In practical terms, this auction happens every time an user performs a search. This means that, in one day, thousands of auctions are held to show ads. It is also at the time of the auction that the cost per click (CPC) is defined, which is the amount that each advertiser will pay for that display. An advertiser can set what is maximum they are willing to pay for a click, that is what we call CPC bidding is. The CPC bid is the main information at the time of the auction, but it is not a determining factor for a good positioning.

Another piece of information that is taken into account at the time of the auction, is the quality score. The three pillars of the quality score are:

KEYWORDS

The words you will be bidding on.

AD

The sponsored link that will appear after someone searches for a keyword

LANDING PAGE

The page people will land after clicking on the ad

Putting simply, Google defines the quality score by calculating the relevance and the content between the keyword, ad and the landing page. The quality of the landing page is also take into consideration, Google check the loading time and the usability of the website. The quality score is measured every thousand impressions (number of times an ad is seen) and this score is measured from 0 to 10.

Given the CPC bidding information and the quality score, it is possible to calculate the AdRank – the index that determines in which order the ads will appear. The AdRank equation is quite simple CPC bid X Quality Score = AdRank. The higher the AdRank, the better the ad placement for display to the user. A high CPC bid does not necessarily mean better placement for an ad to show, as you can see in the examples below.

Position	Advertiser	CPC Bid	Quality Score	AdRank	Real CPC
1	Company A	$1.40	10	14	$0.90
2	Company B	$1.40	6	8.4	$1.00
3	Company C	$1.40	4	5.6	$1.12
4	Company D	$1.40	3	4.2	$1.13

In this example, since Company A’s quality score is much higher than their competitors, so Google lowered its actual CPC, even though it offers the same bid as its competitors.

Position	Advertiser	CPC Bid	Quality Score	AdRank	Real CPC
1	Company A	$1.71	10	17	$1.71
2	Company B	$1.70	10	17	$1.70
3	Company C	$1.50	4	6	$1.13
4	Company D	$1.50	3	4.5	$1.12

When the bid and the quality score are the same, a company can choose to pay even $0.01 more to beat the competition. With a low quality score, Google may not even display the ad.

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