My ad is shown for a keyword I did not choose

A new feature or a bug?

[emoshe]

Hello,

I have encountered the same problem on two different campaigns so I've decided to consult you girls & guys:

I have an adgroup which has only 3 keywords:

[keyword]
"keyword"
keyword

(same keyword in 3 matches)

Now, I did a search today for a competing product, and my ad has came up. My search was for *only* the name of my competitor product, and I can't see why is my ad shown. This happened also in another campaign.

I now think that I have been paying for untargeted traffic for a while without knowing..

Anyone know anything about it?

Thank you,
Eyal

[vikingpwr]

did you see your ad listing on Google.com or one of the search partners. If you use a broad match and promote via the search partner network, then your ads are subject to Google's "expanded broad matching" feature which allows Google to display your ad listing whenever Google thinks that the user search is remotely relevent to your keyword listing.

So if you bid on the word "puff daddy ring tone" and the user types in "my dog has ring worm", then Google may decide to show your ad on a search partner site. Why? Google wants your money. They typically do this when your keyword CPC bid is higher than the norm.

[emoshe]

well, I saw this on Google.com.. not on a search partner site. Is this expanded broad match available now also on Google.com? How can I turn it off?

This is ridicules, I'm paying Google to show my ad when a search is being done for X, they show it for Y, and expect me to pay for this?

The keywords are totally different, they don't have in common even a single word.

I'll be happy if someone from google can explain what is going on here.. Thanks.

[bcct]

I think you can either delete the broad matched keywords or start adding the negative match keywords (keywords that you don't want it to trigger your ads).

It will take you consirable efforts to find and update the negative keywords relevant to the broad matched keywords.

[cline]

You've been paying for untargeted traffic for ages. If you use broadmatch targeting Adwords uses it as a license to to target your ad to whatever they choose. It's called "expanded broad match".

[edited by: eWhisper at 1:12 pm (utc) on April 13, 2006]
[edit reason] Please don't drop links. [/edit]

[emoshe]

But what if I _do_ want broad matching, however, I don't want expanded broad matching..?

[cline]

You can't. Don't like it? Complain to Adwords.