roitracker - 4:29 pm on Oct 10, 2003 (gmt 0)

This is far worse than I could have imagined!

Competition for all your keyword bids has just increased by a factor of at least 5. For one of my best-performing ads, what used to be a top 3 position on the first page is now 7th on the second page. And they're charging a higher CPC for the privilege! This is ridiculous.

Instead of rewarding highly targeted, exact match terms used by advertisers that have spent time & effort researching & narrowing down their keyword terms, you're now competing with every tom-dick-and-harry that happens to be using broad match.

For those of you that thought you'd be protected by using only phrase & exact matching options (myself included), think again. With the expanded broad match option now active, your average CPC is going to skyrocket!

I am not a happy punter. :(