Redirecting AdWords Display URLs

[legalseo]

I feel it's a best practice (from a user experience POV) to create a 301redirect when using a fictitious display URL in your PPC ads. And according to the AdWords help page (http://support.google.com/adwordspolicy/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=175906&rd=2) Google doesn't have an issue using a redirect. "Redirects used for tracking purposes are fine as long as the final landing page has the same domain as the display URL."

I'm curious if there is ad score penalty if one does not ionclude a redirect - i.e. the user types in your display URL and gets a 404. Has anyone seen an evidence of this?

[flowsimple]

There is no penalty. If someone manually types in your redirect URL, they've broken the connection from the Adwords ad completely. On the other hand, Google does track 404 errors on your site, and any 404 error will affect your SEO and overall site rankings.

While I agree it makes for nice UX, I think creating a 301 redirect from the fictitious display URL to the actual landing page is overkill. I have never seen any 404 errors in my logs of a person manually typing in a display URL. People are inherently lazy. They will mouse and click.

[legalseo]

THX for your feedback Pashima - we actually have seen a few cases of it (I would believe from users that remember a display URL for later use). But as a percentage of all visits it's infinitesimal.
I actually misstated the adscore question, as of course Google has no idea if the URL was manually entered. I should have asked "Does Google check to see if the display URL actually goes to a landing page and if not, is there an adscore penalty".

[stevefidelity]

In the grand scheme of things, with all of the different things that as search marketers we have to worry about, this is WAY down on the priority scale. Specifically when looking at AdWords, the idea of landing page plays a small role in quality score.

Check out this from Google's Chief Economist, Hal Varian who breaks down quality score. I would say it's a slight over simplification, but he's saying quality score breaks down as the following:

60% is CTR

30% is 'Relevance'

10% is Landing Page

watch?v=qwuUe5kq_O8

[john4math]

My ads that have fictitious display URLs that are specific to the keyword I'm targeting tend to have higher CTRs, so they get clicked more, which is good for keyword quality scores, so really you're rewarded for it, not penalized!

People don't visit those display URLs very often.  However, some of the fictitious display URLs pop up in Webmaster Tools from time to time... it looks like Google finds them on sites that scrape Adwords ads.

[flowsimple]

That's no longer accurate as of recent changes to the QS algo. Goole announced that LP quality and UX will play a larger role in the calculation of your QS. (http://adwords.blogspot.com/2011/10/ads-quality-improvements-rolling-out.html)

I'd bet that the quality of your LPs will become even more significant as our web space and Adwords matures.

[legalseo]

Thanks for the reply. As managing web production is one of my responsibilities reducing the number of 404s for a 600K site has priority (for me - hence the question). Our company has 40 plus active campaigns and countless ad groups - and therefore thousands of display URLs. My motivation in asking this question is to reduce 404s -  if I can convince our paid search staff that there is value (other than less work for me) to following a best practice, then I might expect a degree of buy-in on their part.

As Pashima alludes to below, from a conversion standpoint making your landing page relevant to your ad and search terms would seem the goal for a company like Google that professes to be all about the UX. not to mention your own internal ROI tracking.