Phrase vs Broad Match on a Single Negative Keyword

[phpmaven]

I've been doing a bit of research this morning and can't seem to find a definitive answer on this.

Is there any difference between the following two examples?

-river
-"river"

I've read in a few places that the only difference would be that the broad match would also catch "rivers" as well, but I've seen it suggested elsewhere that it would also match synonyms of the word; I.E. stream, creek, etc...

That would seem to make sense since the broad match keyword "river" would also match the synonyms. So I guess the questions is: does a negative broad match single keyword work the same as a "positive" broad match single keyword, only in reverse?

Thanks,

Mark

[Rehan]

I've read in a few places that the only difference would be that the broad match would also catch "rivers" as well, but I've seen it suggested elsewhere that it would also match synonyms of the word; I.E. stream, creek, etc...

I'm pretty sure that negative broad match is not "expanded" like broad match keywords are. As it says at [adwords.google.com...] :
"It wouldn't prevent your ads from showing on variations of these terms, however."

(variations = synonyms, etc.)

[phpmaven]

Thanks Rehan,

Yes I saw that when I was researching this, but I couldn't find anything more definitive than that. I've seen other information that seems to contradict that. Perhaps AWA can chime in on this.

Is using the negative term -river exactly the same as -"river" ?

Thanks,

Mark

[RhinoFish]

no, those are not the same thing. phrase looks for the phrase, broad looks for the idea.

-"river", for example, won't block these searches:
joan rivers (because of the s)
bigriver (because if doesn't find the word by itself)
riverbend (same deal)

usually, as you think of negging out something, your mind will tell you if a certain idea / topic is the problem... or that some particular word is the problem... use that notion to choose between phrase and broad negging.

as for synonyms, keep in mind that search and content derive an ad group's theme differently. in content, it's very likely that -river will kill all the synonyms. in search, i'd need more information about what other positive and negative keywords were present to make a good guess (but you should use the keyword tools within your account to test the actual impact).

see here for more:
[webmasterworld.com...]

[edited by: RhinoFish at 3:02 pm (utc) on Aug. 6, 2008]

[Rehan]

Thanks for the link, RhinoFish. In that thread, AWA2 wrote:

However, unlike normal broad match keywords, broad match negative keywords are not expanded to similar terms or plurals, so the negative keyword '-maps' would not prevent your ad from showing on 'map of toronto'. As lengthy as some negative keyword lists can be, expanding negative terms to include similar terms would be more frustrating than helpful as you tried to decipher why a particular keyword term was not triggering your ad.

But this applies to the search network only. For the content network, it's a little different:

Negative keywords function on the content network in the same was as standard keywords do, i.e. they help develop a theme for your ad group that is matched to the theme of potential content placement pages. Negative keywords will impact these themes and help determine where your ad will show, but they will not exclude your ad from showing on a page because a term you have specified as a negative simply appears

So the answer to the original question above is that it depends on whether you're talking about the search network or the content network.