i have an adwords campaign going and i noticed some traffic from an odd search query. I am not bidding on the word that triggers the ad. It is not one of my keywords in the campaign at all.
the word that triggers the ad is analternate term for the main keywords i am using and i was wondering if google was stemming my keywords and displaying the ads that way.
Where would i see the charge for this, i don't know what triggered the ad in the first place.
I only noticed it this morning when looking at my referrers list and saw the odd query.
has anyone seen or heard about anything like this?
thanks
briggidere
Hopefully someone smarter than I can confirm this, but I don't believe that Google charges for this experimental stemming. Thought I read that somewhere here.
I experience some of the same in some older campaigns where broad matches have become quite broad. The campaign theme is tastefully sexual, but not smut or porn and I get these queries that I don't even know what they mean (and I've been around the block).
patient2all
that makes a bit of sense i suppose. it just worried me that if it is happening and i am being charged, i would have lost complete control of my campaigns.
I think i'll send google a email about it to try to clarify it.
cheers
You are probably bidding on broadmatch terms, words with no quotes or brackets around them. Google will very often select additional words to display your ad for. Sometimes you can see these words in the upper righthand corner of the Keyword Tool (under Expanded Broad Matches), but not all extra words will show.
It's not allways clear which keywords triggers which extra's. You can exclude these words by adding '-unwanted word' to your keywords.
We already have a load of negative kw's in there at the moment for unwanted traffic.
The term is like "wigets uk" so how can google replace the wigets bit for another term that i am NOT bidding on, only leaving uk in the phrase. I am not bidding on broad match with just the term "uk". that would be maddness.
The additional term is NOT in any of my campaigns. If they are stemming and i am being charged, which campaign would it show up in, as it doesn't fit into any of my campaigns already set up?
briggidere
Are you bidding on 'widgets uk' (broadmatch)?
Then it's very well possible that Google displays your ad for 'gizmo's uk' as well, if Google thinks gizmo's are similar to widgets. They are often wrong (and often rigt as well).
Yes i am bidding on "wigets uk" on broadmatch.
I have just come accross the expanded broad match page on adwords now and it doesn't look like a good thing in my opinion. Just looked at what google says are related to my terms and ahhhhhhh, there are hardly any that would be decent enough to bid on.
Bad bad bad. i don't like. I suppose we are all going to have to keep a very close eye on any broadmatching terms now. bugger
thanks for the help guys.
...I suppose we are all going to have to keep a very close eye on any broadmatching terms now.
Briggidere, this is actually a change that was implemented quite some time ago, in October 2003. Here's the announcement - second item from the top:
Now live: Expanded broad matching
[adwords.google.com...]
Sounds like you may have already seen the info below, but just in case not, more details are to be found here:
[adwords.google.com...]
AWA
I must correct something I said earlier. Of course you are charged. What was I thinking?
What I was recalling having read was the following:
your keywords aren't penalized for underperforming variations or expansions.
So your CTR is not "charged", but your pocketbook most certainly is.
Sorry,
patient2all
