vikingpwr - 5:13 pm on Apr 10, 2006 (gmt 0)

Just got an upodate on this issue:

ADWORD BUYER BEWARE!

Looks like Google uses different keyword matching rules for its search network partners.

Let's say you are bidding on the term:

Chicago Dental Implants

and have it set to broad match. In Google's site the user would have to include the 3 terms above in their search in order for your listing to appear.

However, for search network partners the user would just have to include any of the terms above in order for your listing to appear.

Now this is total BS. No wonder 90% of our click cost was coming from these search partners and not converting at all. Our listings were being shown on MapQuest just because a user typed in a city name.

Here is basically what we were told:

"... With the broad match matching option, using our expanded keyword matching technology, the Google AdWords system automatically runs your ads on highly relevant keywords, including synonyms, related phrases, and plurals, even if they aren't in your keyword lists. The expanded matches will change over time as we learn more about which new keywords best suit the true meaning of your ads."

Let me rephrase:

"... Mr. customer Google is a public company and has an inflated stock price. In order for us to maintain our current valuation we need to continue to find ways to make more money. Since 99% of our revenue comes from AdWords we need to make sure that we get as many clicks as possible. To this end we will now be showing your listings whenever we want if we think we can make money. To make this appear legitimate we have given this new undocumented feature a name - "Expanded Broadmatch". Because we all know that a broad match is simply not broad enough."