Google : Tracking not used in Bid Price

So they aren't using CTR and they aren't using conversion or or analytics, one might wonder why they would not be using highly relevant factors.

Unless of course it's really not about "landing page quality" after all ...

...in retrospect though there may be factors that are leading to the appearance of this thing that people are calling 'The Sandbox'.

I doubt they'd lie outright, but by being so specific about how they aren't using Conversion/Analytics data they've left a lot of room to maneuver. So it isn't being used in the calculation of "ones" minimum bid - can it still be used in the calculation of a system-wide base value for a given term?

If they really aren't being evil with this, then why not just say that Analytics/Conversion data has NO effect on Adwords costs whatsoever?

this is showing that trust in Google is dropping from webmasters and its easy to see why but I wonder what the implications of a major drop in trust would be to Googles bottom line in the long run. Slow uptake of new products & features, lack of genuinely new investment from newcomers? This considering webmasters to historically be early adopters.

The fact is, CTR has absolutely nothing to do with landing page content, and conversion rates are easily rigged by savvy advertisers. If these 'relevant' factors were evaluated, it wouldn't take long before every advertiser would exploit them.

Click through rate on Google.com
Overall history
Most recent history
Ad copy
Landing pages
Other relevancy factors

Here are the main "quality scores"
1. Keyword Quality Score for Search
2. Ad Group Quality Score for Content
3. Minimum Bids (Only Applies to Search)
4. Account Quality Score
5. Quality Score | Ad Copy
6. Quality Score | Landing Page

http://www.ewhisper.net/blog/adwords-quality-score-presentation-pubcon-2006-brad-geddes/#more-678

So Graywolf, they actually are using CTR as one of the factors, but not in relation to the landing page.

>The fact is, CTR has absolutely nothing to do with landing page content, and conversion rates are easily rigged by savvy advertisers. If these 'relevant' factors were evaluated, it wouldn't take long before every advertiser would exploit them.

so instead of using a conversion rate which can be rigged but where it's not is a huge indication of the relevance/quality of the ad to the destination page they are better using some arbritrary combination of amount paid, phase of the moon and opinion of the work experience boy instead?