brizad - 8:14 pm on Apr 25, 2008 (gmt 0)

I guess I've been in a cave but I just read in another WebmasterWorld thread that this started October 1st, 2003. I just found out about it this week.

I was checking my server logs and found that we had a click for a TOTALLY UNRELATED KW. I was bidding on a 2 word "website building" related KW and got a click for a 3 word gardening query. I googled the query myself and there we were.

I tried to find some "logic" to it. Had I mistakenly bid on a one word KW that could have triggered the ad? I checked and I had not.

2 of the 3 words in the gardening query that we showed up for were not even in my campaign. One kw was, but it was part of a 4 word KW phrase.

I called support and they acted like it was totally normal. Their suggestions...add more negative KWs. If they're going to pull 1 random word out of a 4 word phrase and match it to a completely unrelated query, then in theory I'd have to negative match nearly every word in the dictionary wouldn't I?

Geeze this is insane. What about all the google preaching about relevancy and tightly focused ad groups? We do that and yet they stab us in the back by showing ads for completely unrelated queries. Maybe I missed it but I don't recall them notifying me about this change.

This is as bad a yahoo's expanded match.

- It is up to you whether to use it. If it works use it, if it doesn't then don't.

How am I able to NOT use it? I can't find a way to switch it off and the google rep said you couldn't.

- There is no removal of control from the current situtation. It is additional functionality.

Are you saying that opting out of this expanded broad matching is possible if you somehow get "additional functionality"?

Thanks