Via the AdCenter Blog, Microsoft has announced that, it has launched Quality-Based Ranking Update for the United Kingdom and Canada. It would mean that the publishers would now have to come up to a certain level pre-designated by Microsoft, to get their advertisements published in the "mainline" section, that is the place where the advertisements appear just above the search results. This new quality-based ranking system will determine the quality component via the advertiser's click-through rates and maximum bids.

Here is what the AdCenter Blog has to say about the new launch:

For advertisers in the US we made changes to the adCenter quality-based ranking system " the formula that we use to calculate which ads appear in the mainline (the ads that appear above algorithmic search results).

Today were announcing that this change is being introduced to the UK and Canadian adCenter Markets.

Prior to this change, the algorithm used to determine when ads could appear in the mainline was more rigid. With these changes, the marketplace is now more dynamic, and any ad with a Quality Based Ranking above the mainline threshold may appear in the mainline.

This change represents a win-win for advertisers and searchers; in addition to giving you more control over placement, searchers are getting better quality ads in the mainline.

As an advertiser, you can control whether your ads appear in the mainline by increasing either the Click Through Rate or the Max Bid. You can think of this as a quality threshold that you must cross in order to appear in the mainline. With this change, we expect most of your ads will continue to perform as they have in the past. However, there may be some cases where:

• You could see your ads move in or out of the mainline depending on your CTR and set Max Bid
• You may need to bid more to maintain mainline positions
• You may see ads move up into the mainline without bidding more
• For ads remaining in the mainline, your actual CPC may increase

If you want to improve your quality, make sure to check your adCenter account regularly to adjust ad copy, bid price and other key attributes. Also, take a look at these tips on adCenter Optimization, Qualifying Traffic With Negative Keywords and Keyword Research.

All of our quality-based ranking improvements have been made in the context of the overall search experience " we will take both the paid and organic listings into account when assessing the overall experience for the searcher, while at the same time endeavouring to balance the needs of the advertiser.

Over time, we will continue to improve the paid search listings on Live Search, specifically focusing on:

• Quality of ads " that the ad copy aligns with offer, landing page and search term
• Quality of advertisers " that the advertiser is offering unique and valuable goods, services or information
• Quality set of overall listings " that the overall result set is unique, extremely relevant, high quality and the best value for the searcher

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