Ever since Google Slap sent everyone scrambling, lots of people have been asking quite a few questions about the changes at Google…what works, what doesn’t work, what does Google want, etc. What I’ve got in tonight’s post is some of the results of those tests…

Does Google Hate Squeeze Pages?

If you have a domain that’s been “slapped” - in other words, you were happily buying clicks at 12-14 cents each, and then all of a sudden, Big G is asking you to pay $5-$10 per click, then you may never be able to pay 12-14 cents per click again, even after you “improve the user experience” by adding more content, or whatnot.

I’ve got fifteen domains that were slapped. Seven of them were squeeze pages. After talking to a couple folks at Google, I “improved the user experience” for them. As of now, 4 of them I’m able to buy 12 cent clicks again. Three of them Google still wants $5 per click for.

The only common thing I can find that might be causing these two to still be “slapped” is that I have large keyword lists for them. My next round of tests will include paring those keyword lists down to under twenty, and then slowly building them back up.

The good news is that every brand new squeeze page I’ve created since the Google Slap, I have created under a brand new Adwords account, and used less than 20 keywords for each has not had any problems whatsoever.

So, based on my data, I would say that squeeze pages are just fine, as long as you:

  • Use a new a new domain
  • Use a new Adwords account
  • Provide a couple of paragraphs of text explaining what you’re asking the user to sign up for
  • Follow Big G’s suggestion to limit your keyword list to 20 or less

When I have done the above, I’ve had no problems whatsoever getting nice, cheap clicks to my squeeze pages.

If you have a site that HAS been slapped, I see indications that the domain has been “marked”, and quite possibly the Adwords account has been “marked”. You can get your domain and Adwords account “unmarked”, but it takes time, effort, and *gasp* work.

It’s much easier, in my opinion, just to set up a new domain, a new Adwords account, and let it roll. In fact, as part of this test, one of my new domains has the exact same squeeze page that one of my slapped domains had, but its on a new domain, running a new Adwords account, and I’m only using 16 keywords instead of 190 keywords. The result? The new squeeze page gets traffic at 10 cents per click. Big G will only send traffic to the old squeeze page for $5+ per click (even after attempting to “improve the user experience”)

I hope this gives you some insight. I know testing data from 15 or so domains is hardly conclusive, but it should give you some good guidelines to follow if you’re still “slapped”.