Ads appearing for terms in copy, not only terms bid on

Andrew Goodman blog says ... I don't see it

[JonBoy]

In his Tuesday, May 06, 2003 blog at [traffick.com...] Andrew Goodman claims that he's discovered from his logfiles that his ads are appearing for the term 'famous canadian', even though he has never bid on this term. Instead, he's just had ads including the word Candian in the title and famous in the copy.

I'm sceptical. Firstly I don't see this for my ads, admitted though I'm in the UK so might not be seeing the full effects of the latest version of MatchDriver. Secondly, it's such a violation of all PPc sense it's difficult to imagine Overture being mad enough to do it.

Anyone know anything about this?

[Tropical Island]

JonBoy,

Have a look at [webmasterworld.com...] where we discussed this very topic earlier this week.

This is just one more example of how Over is becoming more disreputable. Without allowing us the use of negative words this practise is totally dishonest. Taking one word from your title and another from your description is not what most PPC advertisers have in mind.

[JonBoy]

Thanks for the link Tropical. Quite an eye-opener.

If I understood right, this means that bidding on a keyword guarantees you appear for searches for that keyword, but you'll also appear for anything else that matches (in some standard searchy way) the copy of your ad?