Searching for 'bluewidgets' (one word) shows my ad with a dynamic title indicating google found 'widgets' in the query. I actually have 'widgets' in my campaign but not 'bluewidgets'. I also have 'widgets' in my negative keyword list because in this case it is a trademark.
It was an oversight to have it in the campaign, but I thought it should be blocked by the negative kwd list.
Seems it should be blocked, no? Am I misunderstanding negative kwd operation, or is this a bug in the negative kwd list?
That said, mike_ppc may be on to the answer: it may well be an issue of 'expanded broad match'.
I also agree with mike_ppc in that it's not a good idea to have the keyword 'widgets' and the negative keyword
'-widgets' active in your account in such a way that they can interact.
If you know that you don't want to show for a particular search which is a trademark, then perhaps it would be best to create a negative keyword for the entire trademarked term.
AWA
The keyword list is rather large, and I was actually unfamiliar with the search tool at the time I set up the negative keywords.
>>Could it be you have broadmatched "widgets" - and the extended match allows you to be shown when someone searches for "bluewidgets" (?)
Yes, seems that's it.
>> In this case, negative "-widgets" shouldn't prevent the ad to appear.
I guess that is what is counter-intuitive for me.
>> Btw: why would you bid on "widgets" and also negative match "widgets"?
10's of thousands of kewyords in my account, and rushed to block 30 or so 'restricted' versions of words without searching for each individually.
I have removed them and fixed the problem. I just find it interesting that you can get this, and potentially if it works for this case when the extended broad match matches "bluewidgets" to my "widgets" "-widgets" criteria, then potentially it could match "bluewidgets" on "blue", "-widgets". This latter case is what concerns me, although the former is what I observed.
>> If you know that you don't want to show for a particular search which is a trademark, then perhaps it would be best to create a negative keyword for the entire trademarked term.
The issue is that I can't posibly think of all the possible combinations of XXXtrademark, so I rely on the negative match. bluekleenex, redkleenex, etc.. they are all different words, and if they extended broad match on 'blue' and ignore my '-kleenex' then I am in trouble. (I agree it seems unlikely that blue would broad match to bluekleenex, but the trademark in question is a common word, and I must appease the merchant)
