Answers to your keyword state questions

It's only been a couple days, but you've let us know you're excited (and a bit scared) about the new keyword states. We share your excitement, and we're here to erase your fears. So with that, your questions:

Question no. 1: Are you changing how you rank ads?
Though you'll see new keyword states in your account, we want to assure you that the 'auction' will remain the same. We'll continue to rank your ads based on your maximum CPC and the Quality Score.

Question no. 2: What is the Quality Score?
The Quality Score is simply a new name for the predicted CTR, which is determined based on the CTR of your keyword, the relevance of your ad text, the historical keyword performance, and other relevancy factors.

Question no. 3: Are you going to continue to discount ads?
As always, the AdWords discounter will continue to reduce your actual cost-per-click so that you pay the lowest possible price for your ad.

Question no. 4: How do you determine the minimum bid?
The minimum bid is 100% determined by the Quality Score. Just like the auction, the minimum bid for your keyword is dynamic, and specific to your keyword in your specific Ad Group. This means that if you and your friend are running on the keyword 'soccer cleats', you could each have a different minimum bid; it all depends on your keyword's Quality Score and can change over time. The higher the Quality Score for your keyword, the lower the minimum bid.

Question no. 5: What happens to disabled keywords?
We want to remind you that disabled keywords will remain marked as disabled in your account for about a month after the changes are made to the system. At this time, they will be deleted. This is so you'll have a month to either delete them yourself, or re-enable them (by first deleting them, then adding them back into your account).

We hope this helps you rest easy. If you have more questions, send them our way... And check back for more updates. Same bat time. Same bat channel.

Posted by Jon, Inside AdWords crew