'Dear Inside AdWords...' - deleting keywords, and "those highlighted top ads"

This week, we'll answer some of our readers' questions about deleting keywords in bulk and ads that appear above the search results.

I'd like to use the keywords tools in AdWords to delete all keywords which haven't accumulated impressions for several months. I don't want to delete keywords I've put in over the last few weeks (whether they accumulated impressions or not) to give the newer ones a chance first. Is there any way to do this? - Alex

Dear Alex: You can use the Find and Edit Keywords tool in AdWords to filter out or delete keywords based on specific criteria. For example, you can find all the keywords that have shown less than 100 impressions in the last month (as I’ve highlighted in red in the screenshot below). The tool also allows you to view the list of keywords found based on your criteria first, so you can verify that you won’t be deleting any wanted keywords by accident. (e.g. the "No changes right now" option in the second highlighted red box below) You can also find and edit keywords by other criteria such as CPC, CTR, number of clicks, and more. I know this doesn't necessarily help you track down all your keywords with low impressions from the past several months, but this would be a great addition to the tool and I'll forward your feature request to our product team.

I’ve noticed that sometimes an ad is located on the top of the search results in a highlighted sponsored link. What makes an ad appear there versus the regular ad spots on the right side of the search results? – Erik F.

I’m interested in showing my ads in the highlighted section on the top of the search results. How do I get my ads to show there? – George S.

Dear Erik & George: The ads you’re referring to are automatically placed above the search results on Google.com by the AdWords system, depending on a number of variables and performance factors including: ad approval status (these ads must be approved), maximum cost-per-click (CPC), clickthrough rate (CTR), and ad text. This is to ensure that we can provide the most relevant advertising to our users. There is not a way to request one of these top spots since placement is automatically determined by the AdWords system. However, we can tell you that the ads that qualify for these spots also tend to rank first or second among AdWords ads in the regular spots on the right side of the page, and are evaluated with a stringent ranking formula that favors higher CTRs. Our advice would be to continually monitor and optimize your keywords and ad text in order to get the best performance; our favorite tips can be found here.

Do you have some AdWords quandaries of your own? Send them to us and we'll try our best to answer some of those questions here.

Posted by Vivian, Inside AdWords crew