logfile question

does adwords strip the actual keyphrase?

[chewy]

I'm looking over a bunch of logfiles (yes, manually - well actually using TextPad) and I'm surprised at how "clean" all the referrers look.

each is kw=word+city+state in a very neat and clean format. There are clearly no misspellings, and no words that are not explicitly in my AdWords campaign.

This just seems too "neat and clean" to me somehow.

what I'm trying to find out is what the searcher is really searching on...

is it possible that by using the string kw={keyword} in my AdWords account, that Google is giving me the keyword I paid for rather than the actual phrase searched for by the searcher?

I'm doing this as I have found many useful negative words by doing this with other accounts in the past. If you haven't done it, you should try it!

[eelixduppy]

I don't see why google would be changing the referrer.

As for the spelling, Google, for example, does have a suggested spelling for searches. Most users that would misspell a word do click on the alternate spelling to get better results from the search query. This should at least account for most of the correct spelling, unless, of course, your site is for English professors ;)

[chewy]

Turns out Google does indeed appear to be SANITIZING the referrer and passing the sanitized version on to Google Analytics.

We may need to do something on the server to get extended referral information so that we can truly see what is going on in the logfiles.

Using ClickTales, I find TONS of useless terms that Google seems to think are interesting to me that are completely irrelevant.

This is very annoying and, at least for me, a very NEW and TROUBLING finding.

I'm thinking this is the end of broad match for me and if word gets out, possibly for many people.