roitracker - 12:20 am on Oct 3, 2003 (gmt 0)

The bottom line is how many impressions increase are we talking about here. If it's only, say, a 5% increase it's not going to have much of an impact.

In theory.

However, there could equally be a *major* impact.

Here's a "what if" scenario (taking expanded matches for "gold" as silver, jewelry, platinum, jewellery, goldmine)...

What if you currently broad match "gold", have a max bid of $1, & are in position 1. Normally you'd only show for searches that contain the phrase "gold".

Along comes expanded broad matching. Turns out that silver is worth more than gold, & all these bidders have a higher CTR than you, & they're also bidding $1. In addition, 'Golds Accounting Co.' is bidding £1.50 on the term "golds".

Since G "automatically displays ads for related terms, including plurals", where will you be listed?

Will you still be on the first page? Will you have to increase your max CPC to remain in your top position? Will it lead to a bidding scenario nightmare?

Only time will tell.

Note: All this is purely hypothetical, so don't panic (yet).