(Non-specific and not very good) examples would be:
clinical-decision-support systems
Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease
ISO/IEC standards
Will using "-", "/" in my kw's make any difference in terms of how ads are triggered relative to those search terms, eg, if my kw phrase is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, will my ad show when someone searches for this term but doesn't use the hyphen?
Likewise, if I use that without the hyphen, and someone does use it in their search term, will my ad show in this instance?
Syzygy
(hyphens at all)
I'm presuming that should have read (no hyphens at all), or am I misunderstanding you?
Syzygy
Will using "-", "/" in my kw's make any difference in terms of how ads are triggered relative to those search terms, eg, if my kw phrase is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, will my ad show when someone searches for this term but doesn't use the hyphen?Likewise, if I use that without the hyphen, and someone does use it in their search term, will my ad show in this instance?
Just as a general comment, I'm a big supporter of the idea of answering questions of this nature by setting up the actual situation in a test campaign, and then just seeing what happens when you do the various searches that you're curious about.
It's sort of like taking it out of the realm of the theoretical, and into the realm of practical proof.
I have a test campaign in my own account for just this purpose - and once the test is done I just pause it. Three caveats:
* Make sure the campaign is budgeted so that it'll show your ad 100% of the time.
* Do allow for server delays. So maybe set it up, and then run the test a couple of hour later.
* Don't forget to turn it off after your test, like I once did - and with a really high Max CPC and daily budget too!
AWA
I do intend to trial this in the next day or two. However, before going into a testing situation I always find it more useful to be armed with as much knowledge as possible - it can save an awful lot of time.
Using hyphens in search will bring up different serps to searches without, and, in the areas I'm looking to place ads - where hyphenation may or may not make a difference - I've not seen another ad at all. This initially makes me unsure as to whether the idea of "to hyphenate or not" actually plays any part in how my ads get shown.
In trialing this (and based on sem4u's positive experiences) I'm hoping that I've found a new tranche of untapped kw's for our sectors. Nonetheless, I though that adwords may actually have had a rule on this.
Will look to post back once I have any results of note.
Syzygy
For that matter, why not strip all non alpha-numerics from both the query and the keyword pre-comparison. In the examples that Syzygy cited, it's likely the same target audiences would be reached whether those delimiters were taken into consideration or not.
After all a searcher for "ISO/IEC standards" is just as likely to be happy with an ad result that only contained the simpler keyword phrase "iso iec standards". For that matter, why even specify case there? I'd thought I'd read that case is unimportant in matching.
I think it's important to settle the punctuation/delimiter without a lot of hypothetical testing.
1) Don't have time for it
2) It's a matter of whether I'll need to use keywords or (keywords * 10)
Also needed is a clarification of whether the rules, if any, apply to all matching options. These things should be common knowledge. They're not part of the relevancy algorithm, just a matter of how much we have to fatten up keyword lists.
patient2all
Search using a hyphen and the ad shows. Use the terms without the hyphen (yup, leaving a gap in-between words where the hyphen would be) and the ad shows.
The same applies with the forward slash "/".
I'm speculating now as to whether this will work with other non-alpha-numerics...
Syzygy
I'm speculating now as to whether this will work with other non-alpha-numerics...
I intentionally use other non-alpha-numberic characters ($, &, ...) for several different keyword designs. They are very helpful.
