Google Killing PPC Ad Rotation

Put this in the column of "What The Hell Are They Thinking?".  In yet another thinly veiled attempt to pretend that they are "helping" advertisers, Google announced that the option to have ads in an adgroup "rotate evenly" will reset after 30 days of rotation.

Google has recently launched some really exciting, innovative changes to the AdWords interface that will make it easier to manage PPC accounts, especially those with dozens of campaigns and thousands of keywords - and more is in the pipeline!  I applaud them for this continued innovation. 

But this change really is a huge step backward.  Now, our A/B testing will be limited to 30 day time periods, at the end of which the campaign setting will revert to the dreaded "optimize for clicks".   Google, I beg your pardon, but you do NOT know what is best for my clients.  Just because an ad is expected to receive more clicks does not mean it's a better ad.  What about conversion?  What about bounce rate and other on site metrics that we evaluate in Google Analytics??  This is insanity for them to think that everything is about "the click".  Yes, that's how they make their money - but to be this transparent about it is just astounding.

Google claims that ongoing use of the "even rotation" "can inhibit advertiser performance and deliver less relevant ads to our users."  Whaaaa???

This post was met with much anger today, and already there are petitions on Change.org appealing to Google to reverse this change.  I encourage you to please sign these petitions now:

This petition by my good friend and colleague, Matt Van Wagner here,

and this one by Neil Sorenson here.

Thanks for nothing, Google.