Google Adwords Landing page quality update

Andrew C., a product marketing manager, who heads-up regarding an upcoming AdWords 'landing page quality' change. This change to the algorithm will affect a small number of advertisers -- while having a positive impact on the quality of ads that Google users see. Here's a little background, and a look at what's coming up:
As you may recall, Google began incorporating advertiser landing page quality into the Quality Score back in December 2005. Following that change, advertisers who are not providing useful landing pages to Google users will have lower Quality Scores that in turn result in higher minimum bid requirements for their keywords. Google realize that some minimum bids may be too high to be cost-effective -- indeed, these high minimum bids are google way of motivating advertisers to either improve their landing pages or to simply stop using AdWords for those pages, while still giving some control over which keywords to advertise on. Although it is counter-intuitive to some who hear it, Google had rather show one less ad than to show an ad which leads to a poor user experience -- since long-term user trust in AdWords is of overarching importance.
From time-to-time, Google improve it's algorithms for evaluating landing page quality (often based on feedback from Googles end-users), and next week Google launching another such improvement. Thus, over the coming days a small number of advertisers who are providing a low quality user experience on their landing pages will see increases in their minimum bids. It is important to note, however, that the vast majority of advertisers will not be affected at all by this change, as they link to quality landing pages.
If you do see an increase in minimum bids and you feel that your landing page is providing a great user experience, please contact AdWords support and Google'll take a look. Also, for useful guidelines which will help to define what users look for in a high quality site, Google hope they'll take a look at the landing page and site quality guidelines, from the AdWords Help Center.