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Broad / Phrase / Exact Hierarchy

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CrescentFresh

3:55 pm on Feb 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I know there are already a few posts on this, but some of them were old and inconsistent with each other.

Like everyone else, Id prefer to have [Exact KW] matched 1st, followed by "Phrase KW" followed by just the broad KW term if the other terms didnt cover it.

In other words - a search for- Neon Widgets -with my KWs being [Neon Widgets] "Neon Widgets" Neon Widgets :

would hopefully result in the [Neon Widget] Being used, not the broad term. This I am told may not be the case though, if the Broad term has a higher CTR *OR* if the Broad or Phrase terms have a higher CPC. Which one is it? Is there a definate proper way to do this?

A Search for Neon Widgets would result in the broad term being used right? But Bright Neon would use the Phrase KW?

Thanks for the help.

webdiversity

11:45 pm on Feb 4, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Think relevancy as being the governing factor.

The order will be

[exact]
"phrase"
"phrase" + -negative
broad
broad + -negative

Relevancy will be better the more exact your keyword matches what is typed in.

By the sheer nature, there are less searches made that exactly match what your keyword is, so if you have them find you, the CTR should be decent, but there may not be enough click traffic to satisfy your needs.

CTR will govern position, which will also govern price.

Objective from Google's perspective is for all advertisers for every keyword to pay the same money (and get good ROI obviously).

If advertiser A writes bad ads (low CTR) then they will pay more for real estate than advertiser B (high CTR).

Some people much smarter than me have done all the permutations of CTR/Max CPC/Position, I'm sure if you look on this site it's here (I remember seeing it a while back).

AdWordsAdvisor

2:27 am on Feb 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I want to jump in here with some info, but first want to confirm my thoughts with a 'more techy than me' type.

So, more on Thursday.

;) AWA

eWhisper

5:31 am on Feb 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I agree with WebDiversity that is how it should be.

However, that's not always how it occurs (at least unless G has changed something in the past two weeks that I've missed or hasn't been posted)

When you make ads that compete against each other (blue widget and flying blue widget are competitors for ad space) the ads are given a phantom CTR rate to be used the the rank formula.

If you broadmatch ad gets off to a great start, since it will gather more impressions faster, it will lose this phantom CTR for it's real CTR. If that number is high, when G does a check to see which ad should show in the case where both are relevant, the broadmatch will win out most of the time as the exact 'flying blue widget' is still working with the low phantom CTR.

If the ads tie, then the ad with the highest actual CPC wins the tie.

There are ways around to try to combat this, such as starting with lower bids on broadmatch and higher ones on exact match so that exact match wins a few rounds to get the high ctr you expect from it, then once the ctrs are established, bidding them both back to equal amounts.

AdWordsAdvisor

5:44 pm on Feb 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



OK, I've got to admit that I am not 100% sure what question is really being asked in this thread.

If the question is "...which keyword gets the impression when you have all three KW variations in the same Ad Group?", then the answer is quite straightforward.

Let's say you have the following three keywords in your Widgets Ad Group:

[Neon Widgets]
"Neon Widgets"
Neon Widgets

* If I search on 'Neon Widgets', then the [exact match] gets the impression. (But this is the only search that will give the exact match the impression. 'Neon Widget', for example, will not - as it is singular while your exact matched keyword is plural.)

* If I search on 'Frosted Neon Widgets' or 'Neon Widgets Repaired" then the "phrase match" gets the impression. (And any other search that maintains the order of 'Neon Widgets' along with other words in front of or behind the phrase will give the "phrase match" the impression.)

* If I search on 'Widgets in Neon Colors' then the broad match gets the impression. (In other words if I change the word order of 'Neon' and 'Widgets', or put another word in between 'Neon' and 'Widgets', then the broad match gets the impression.

In this scenario, which keyword gets the impression isn't really related to Max CPC or CTR. Rather it is which keyword is most closely related to the search that is done.

Make sense?

If I've missed the sense of the question, then let me know, and I'll try to answer the right question. ;)

BTW, it is worth saying that keywords/searches are not case sensitive. So 'Frosted Neon Widgets' is exactly the same as 'frosted neon widgets'

AWA

eWhisper

5:54 pm on Feb 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



AWA,

Are you sure about this?

There have been some other threads where you've said that if multiple kws can be shown for the same term, then they compete against each other.

My logs also don't support this theory. I keep a close on one term that is exact, phrase, and broad matched. My logs show that almost all of the searchers from from the broad matched ad even though over 50% of the searches done on this word are an exact phrase.

If G has changed this, then I'm very happy to be wrong, this is the way it should be, just didn't think it worked this way.

AdWordsAdvisor

8:27 pm on Feb 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Yeah, eWhisper, I wasn't sure if I was answering the question you really asked in this thread.

I wonder if we may be mixing two seperate issues, as noted below.

There have been some other threads where you've said that if multiple kws can be shown for the same term, then they compete against each other.

I think you may mean multiple ads being shown for the same term, right?

If so, then yes - they do compete against each other, and Max CPC and CTR do matter.

But using all variations of one keyword in one Ad Group, and using the same keyword in multiple Ad Groups are two very different things.

And just so we're using the same terms, below is a list of three keywords. They are not the same keyword in the 'eyes' of the AdWords system.

[Neon Widgets]
"Neon Widgets"
Neon Widgets

So this is not an example of using the same keyword in multiple places.

However if you were to use the keyword [neon widgets] in two different Ad Groups, then the system would show only one ad at a time. And it would default to the keyword as used in the Ad Group with the higher Max CPC.

If both Ad Groups had the same Max CPC, then the system defaults to the Ad Group in which the keyword has the higher CTR.

Does this clear things up, or does it make it worse? ;)

AWA

eWhisper

8:47 pm on Feb 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I completely agree with the ads competing, and a kw being in multiple groups competing.

I'm talking about a single ad group that contains:
fuzzy widget
"fuzzy widget"
[fuzzy widget]

For these keywords, by far the most searched term is the two word term fuzzy widget. Even the variety of descriptive words added to fuzzy wiget which would make it a phrase match over an exact match makes it so the exact match should have the highest number of impressions.

I have all 3 of these words in the same group. I have power posting links for these 3 kws to track their preformance. I get referrals for the two word term fuzzy widget sent through the broad matched fuzzy widget link even though the searcher only inputted those two words exactly, which means it should come through the exact match link.

According to your earlier post, it seems that all of those fuzzy wiget searches should come through the exact match link.

Hope that explains it a bit better.

AdWordsAdvisor

8:56 pm on Feb 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Interesting.

Thanks for the additional detail, eWhisper. I'll pass this lasted post by some deeply techy sorts, and see what more I can learn.

As I've mentioned in another thread, I'll be away from the office Wed 2/11 thru Mon 2/16. I'll do my best to get more info before Tuesday evening - but I hope you'll bear with me if I'm not able to.

AWA

eWhisper

9:04 pm on Feb 9, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



No worries on the speed. Just like to know every detail about how it works to maximize some things.

Hope you're going on a vacation and not just to a work conference. Enjoy.

AdWordsAdvisor

7:42 pm on Feb 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



eWhisper, I've just posted to another thread for which I have 'owed' you an answer for awhile.

As with your question in that thread, I've run this one past several people at increasing levels of 'techiness', and continue to get the same information consistently:

The AdWords system was designed to operate as described in post #5, and my contacts are at a something of a loss to explain what you are seeing.

As I've mentioned before, I am not particularly technical. But I do know that interpreting web logs and comparing to AdWords statistics can be pretty labor intensive, especially in light of the server delays involved. I wonder if part of the mystery may lie there?

In any case, sorry not to be able to give you a definitive answer. But keep asking those questions - it keeps me on my toes! ;)

AWA

eWhisper

7:56 pm on Feb 24, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Thanks for looking into this. Very muuch appreciated. I'll have to do some more experimenting with my personal accounts.