keyword in destination URL

need some more information

[sdani]

I tried adding {keyword} in one of my destination URLs (Changed existing adgroup). The ads immediately stopped showing up on Google. I gave it a few minutes and then called my account rep. She said this was because, the new URL that I specified was not accessible by the automated system. She finally approved it, and it started working.

My URL format was:
[example.com...]

And my Title format was:
....{keyword:alternate}

Although I have not specified "Alternate" in destination URL, I did see following two requests in my log (just after creating this Ad):
[example.com...]
[example.com...]

I obviously don't have exact pages like above two on my site, and notice that they visited "alternate", while I did not specify it in my destination URL. I had only specified it in my title.

Question:
1. How are you all handling this? Have you created a temporary page which sends back "200" response code to Google for above requests, so that automated system would approve the ads for immediate display on google.

2. If yes, how can I create a temporary page for the first example, where URL contains curly brackets?

Thanks you all
sdani

[edited by: eWhisper at 3:28 pm (utc) on Oct. 7, 2004]
[edit reason] Changed links to example.com [/edit]

[sdani]

sorry for being impatient.. but anyone knows answer to this one?

[anallawalla]

I don't fully understand your example. If you have a URL like this: [example.com...]

then I would expect it to fail - try the real URL in a browser - because of the trailing slash.

If you are doing the above to see the keyword in the logs, you need to have something like this, but in my case I use a bid management tool whose string looks like this:

[example.com...]

If you are trying to use {keyword} to substitute as a path in the URL then it won't work.

[sdani]

Adwords has a feature to substitute "keyword" in destination URL, so if I enter this URL is my AdGroup destination URL:

[example.com...]

and if my keyword is "abcd".. then the target URL becomes:

[example.com...]

SO, why are you saying that it would not work? I am using ISAPI Rewrite to rewrite the URL, so, I don't have any "=" signs in my URLs.

[cgrantski]

Because any server will interpret that as a request for a file named abcd. The file does not exist, and therefore the visitor's browser shows an error. You have to use the =.

[sdani]

I don't think I have succeeded so far in explaining my question."/abcd" is not a problem.. those URL's are valid on my site.
My questions are:

1. Why is google's automated system validating this URL: [example.com...]

2. Can I return 200 status code when i have curly brackets in url? ..i.e. {keyword}.

Thanks
sdani