For those Web businesses that are running Google Adwords campaigns along with having a well SEO’ed website, you may be receiving a penalty if your landing page is too slow in loading. Google has announced on their Adwords blog that slow loading landing pages will negatively impact an advertisers Quality Score.

Quality Score is used to determine an advertisements position on the Google Network. The way it generally works is that those ads with a high Quality Score will receive better position in the network with lower minimum bids. The opposite is true for ads with low scores.

So, why is Google implementing a penalty for slow loading landing pages? It comes down to the user experience on that page. With slow loading pages, the user is more likely to get frustrated or leave before the page has finished loading. This leads to low ad conversions and disgruntled potential customers.

According to Google this penalty will be rolled out within the next couple of weeks. So, Google advertisers beware. You’re ads may just sink in prominence and be a bit more expensive than in the past if you offer up slow loading pages to your customers.

Filed under: Google