in the past incorrect spelt words were a great way to target adwords, very cheap CPC and excellent CTR.
Shak
for the rest of readers, maybe worth clarifying what EXACTLY has changed:
In the past when a word was spelt incorrectly, such as "fowers" and you would be asked "Did You Mean: Flowers"however adwords would only be shown if the advertiser was actually biding for the keyword "fowers" usually at a very low CPC with very high CTR.
since the change which started this thread, automatically adwords are being shown for the keyword "flowers" and I am assuming these are at the rate of the corrected word, rather than the cheaper incorrect word.
I am hoping a few other members can shed some light here, as this seems like a major change, which will affect certain strategies...
Shak
I find this disturbing.
Does anyone know if it is going the opposite way? As in, if I bid on the misspelling, I will show up for the proper spelling? Hmm... may be something I need to look into on Mon.
This is the first time Google has ticked me off.
Added: It's not like Google wasn't making enough money! Misspellings were one small way a webmaster with more time than cash could gain a few inexpensive clicks. I hated it when Overture did it and I hate it now.
The price we are paying for the mispellings is the same as it was, the only difference is we are now seeing "invocation" on AOL and it looks like they may have been the ones seeing a loss in revenue when they were expecting say $2.00 a click and were getting only 5 cents because some people were smart.
If that's the case and we do start getting charged the properly spelt keyword I am hoping that switching off syndication will result in the mispellings helping us to go higher on some of the correctly spelt words and still make the ROI numbers.
I don't see it as that big a deal, broad match has always meant that the entire adwords thing has shown stuff that wasn't relevant, maybe dynamic titles will help those people that mispell to click your ads because the mispelt title is the only one that looks right to them.
Besides, we still have tons of new mispellings on Overture, which tends to make me think it's a human implemented process, so if Google does the same then we should be fine.
I have to wonder what the charge is, after all I have not targetted X Y B, so should I pay?
In my view this is very bad, as surely only searches for which you are targetting in your adwords should be paid for, and what is someone also has the misspellings in his target list.
[keyword]
maybe would (hard to test in my current circumstances) for:
"keyword"
I'd be upset in either case.
They shouldn't be doing this in either case - this is why people like google - no need to ruin it to make a few extra bucks.
It is rather upsetting because I was the only advertisier going after the mispellings...now I am in 3rd place.
I wonder how the order and bid price are determined on these.
I think it sucks because there goes my sweet low CPC edge on the competition.
I think this is worse than matchdriver since that only goes after similar words(in my understanding) and I can still get good CPC and CTR on the mispelling at $.05(grandfathered) or .$10 for new.
unlike most of us.
I think Monday will bring interesting comments...
Shak
the playing field leveled? yes, absolutely.
fair?
depends on whom you talk to. from google's perspective, they're helping users and hapless webmasters. from our perspective, at first glance, it sucks. big time.
but i can see both sides.
as an advertiser who has painstakingly researched alternative spelllings and misspellings, i'm pretty annoyed. especially since i have many keywords @ $0.05 for which i'm either the only advertiser or among a small select group of other enlightened webmasters.
but as a business person, i respect google's right to do this. we're not talking just a few nickels here... this could mean millions of dollars for them in the long run. and displaying ads for misspelled keywords certainly meets their need to provide the best possible user experience.
still, there should be a way to reward resourceful adwords account holders who are actually bidding on these variations and misspellings.
the fact that we're still paying bargain basement rates for these keywords isn't that comforting, as we'll be lower on the page - or even off the first page - once the other ads are thrown in there. our CTR will likely suffer and, well, you can finish the rest of that story
the good news, perhaps, is that many advertisers who weren't smart enough to bid on misspellings may not be smart enough to properly refine their ads for high click through. in which case, you, as a savvy advertiser with more "flash" than cash, will still be relatively OK. (of course, this is just a theory and i could have my head in the clouds on this one.)
in the end, though, one has to still practice good SEO and work on expanding top quality content.
you say "wijet," i say "wudget"... let's call the whole thing off... and sell some widgets.
Personally I don't mind. I am very lazy and have no time to target misspellings so it's ok for me so long as the error correction isn't to broad
This is pretty poor. Htsl is closer to "html" than "hotels". This will surely bring me many unwanted clicks.
Another concern is Googles ability to target ads. I noticed the country "foo" clicking through, more than the 1% Google claimed would slip by. I asked 15 friends in country "foo" to go to Google.com and type in "widgets", and my ad dislayed 15 out of 15 times. Again, Google shrugs. The claim IP based filtering, but it seems to me that ads are displayed to anyone who visits google.com in the english interface, which is default. This is frankly disturbing since A) more impression, less clickthroughs affect your position. Those targeting worldwide or more than one language or country have an advantage. You also pay for clicks you do not want, and don't expect to get per the Google claim. Test this yourself by going to a "regionial Google" with an english interface, which is default in certain countries, and watch your ad appear. Like Atlas, Google shruged. With people using the keyword Google. google.com, and other variations from all sorts of search engines,
Imagine signing up for Google, selling Widgets. Everytime you used the keyword "widget", your ad will not show until manually reviewed. This includes all variations (widgets, widget's, etc.)., At first it was denied Widgets had any sort of "trigger" "flagging" or any sort of delay, only later to be confirmed. They need a big asterisk next to "Start gaining new customers in 15 minutes or less". Some things you only learn while actually running campaigns, assuming there FAQ is indeed 100% accurate. It isn't..
Frankly, it would be no big deal since anywhere else you get whomever from wherever. There isn't much difference in my logfiles. I get plenty of "Wherevers". However, Google is claiming to do things it either can't do, or is not revealing the full picture until it's too late.
Question for they guys who are targeting misspellings - do your deliberately misspelled keywords still cause your ads show up with the other ads or are they completely gone now?
Another concern is Googles ability to target ads.
Did you really believe they could target Afghanistan? I always looked at the geo targeting with a grain of salt. I think they can target to the level of where they have a sales office and that is it
SN
[edited by: Shak at 4:24 pm (utc) on July 6, 2003]
[edit reason] corrected typos [/edit]
Did you really believe they could target Afghanistan?
I thought they had some kind of IP filtering in place. I haven't seen one person from the USA that went to google.ca typed in something common and have that shouldn't appear show up. If they can only target by regional "googles", they should at least say it, instead of pretending. I haven't had one person from Canada not see an English/US ad when searching from Google.com. Granted I didn't do a 15,000 person survey, but to claim 99% is a bit far-fetched, given the ISP's and blocks of IP's that make it through and saw the ads.
You may say big deal, who searches foreign Googles. I speak 3 languages, use the foreign Googles often. I'm sure those people think the last person seeing their ad is an American. People search with strange keywords, and in different ways..
They target per ip, has nothing to do with sales offices
back to the actual topic, looks like its a MAJOR move by Google
Shak
Our secret weapon had been misspellings. Had.
back to the actual topic, looks like its a MAJOR move by Google
I think this is unnecessary and provocative on Google's part. 99% of people will click the link or retype anyway when they realise the spelling mistake (if it was a mistake), and the correct Adwords will be there when the screen refreshes.
If it wasn't a mistake then all the advertisers who were targeting the "error" will not show. What if it wasn't an error? These advertisers will never have their ad displayed.
