katakana based adwords

adwords in Japanese using furigana

[David_M]

I've been trying to target a keyword in katakana "greywidgets". Overture shows this term being searched more than "grey widgets".
However, when placing an ad for widgets, it doesn't show up for greywidgets, but will for grey widgets. Is it possible to use a wildcard to get all katakana word combinations with the word widget in it?
I have similar adwords functioning fine, but for some reason the search engine sees greywidgets as one word. Without going into details, I cant use the full keyword greywidgets- It is possible that google restricts ads for combinations of this keyword.

[bill]

If I understand you correctly I'd suggest using the brackets to get [greywidgets] and then you have the exact spelling. The katakana wildcard may not work the same way a wildcard would work in English.

[David_M]

Trademark problems would not allow me to use [greywidgets], but I could target widgets. I think the problem is the way the system handles katakana phrases.

[bill]

If you look thru the AdWords forum I believe there were some posts about using trademarked names and company names in your ad. I think that you may be able to get away with this to a certain degree. If you're doing something wrong the AdWords people will contact you. You could always claim ignorance ;)

<added>oops..I just saw your post over there about getting AdWords pulled for trademark issues. I guess it depends whether that company or Google are monitoring those words.</added>