According to the Inside Adwords Blog, Quality Score has been adjusted in some ways that will significantly impact anyone running a sponsored campaign for real estate on Google.

Remember, Quality Score is an important factor that helps determine how much you have to pay for placement in the sponsored listings. If you’re still scratching your head, here’s a clear explanation on Google Quality Score.

Here are the changes to Adwords they outlined in this recent announcement:

• Quality Score will now be computed during for every search query
• Keywords won’t be marked as "inactive for search" any longer
• "Minimum Bid" has been replaced by a new stat: "First Page Bid"

The positive spin on this development is that it will no longer be a guess as to how much you’ll need to bid on a specific keyword in order to be considered for first-page placement; simply look at the keyword and Adwords will now tell you how much you need to bid to be considered.

Another positive is that having Adwords evaluate your keywords individually may make it possible for you to place successful bids on relevant terms that were before being marked as "inactive for search" by association with terms that weren’t relevant.

One negative that might come out of this is that not knowing when your keywords have been flagged as irrelevant to your ad campaign will only cause you to bid more for them when they don’t appear in the search results. Although we suppose that finding a $20.00 First Page Bid for "anytown real estate" when you’re living in a rural area will probably be a clear indicator that this keyword has been deemed irrelevant (and therefore received a low Quality Score).