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[webmasterworld.com...]
Warning: OV's suggestion tool is now displaying phrases in their alphabetical order, rendering it even more useless in predicting phrase searches. for example: I searched for "credit counseling service", and got the phrase:
"angeles consumer counseling credit los service"
Search strings are still listed in descending numerical order, but the words in each string are listed alphabetically as bigjohnt points out. It will make search term research a lot harder. :(
I'm hoping this is a temporary glitch. If not, Overture customers should complain, so we can get it changed back. I don't see any utility in this whatsoever, either for Overture or for the user.
Onya
Woz
195 auto city grand information theft vice
...
39 auto part information
36 auto information technical ventilation
34 auto accident information
30 auto body information repair
29 auto information tune up
27 auto loan information
26 auto consumer information insurance
"auto part," "auto accident," "auto body," etc, are kept together... but look at "auto body information repair." Should be "auto body repair information," etc etc.
Or look at this one for "train travel":
297 by in train travel us
Obviously, this long a string is an automated search... and, very likely, if it's not Overture, it's the searching tool that's doing the alphabetizing. I see this appearing on a lot of different queries... though there are whole areas that seem perfectly normal.
PS: Looking for a pattern... thought I'd try "los angeles" related search, as the split is easily seen, so I looked at "los angeles restaurants" and pulled out this consecutive group. Don't know how to account for the following, except maybe different reporting tools, but I wouldn't expect all the "italian los angeles restaurant" searches to be via one tool, if it's tool searches we're looking at here, and all the "japanese los angeles restaurant" searches to be via another. Those numbers do match up pretty closely, though....
469 los angeles restaurant review
324 angeles best los restaurant
219 downtown los angeles restaurant
179 best restaurant in los angeles
175 angeles italian los restaurant
172 angeles los restaurant romantic
171 angeles los palm restaurant
151 angeles los restaurant vegetarian
148 los angeles restaurant supply
147 japanese restaurant los angeles
133 angeles ivy los restaurant
130 los angeles mexican restaurant
mundonet - Thanks. I haven't been paying that much attention to PPC... got to confess that I've been using the Suggestion Tool mostly for general researching, so I hadn't been up to date on Match Driver and what it's all about. Your post prompted me to brush up on Map Driver, and what I've found, in conjunction with the above, raises a bunch of questions about the future of the Suggestion Tool.
First, a link to Overture's official Match Driver FAQ [overture.com].
One of the advantages I've felt that on-site optimization has had over PPC is its ability to target more broadly. It appears that Overture, not out of altruism by any means, is trying to broaden its own ability to target broadly, and to handle misspellings, etc, as well. This obviously leads to problems for those who've bought niche phrases, particularly as you don't know what they're going to do to the exact phrase target you thought you were buying. An excellent discussion in the PPC forum about Match Driver discusses the anticipated problems:
[webmasterworld.com...]
What I haven't been able to find from what I've read is how Match Driver is affecting the Suggestion Tool... ie, will the tool still be reporting the variations of actual searches, or will it be reporting the generic phrases Match Driver is mapping these searches to? If the latter... which what I think they'd do... this makes Overture data a lot less useful for general SEO targeting, which maybe is their intention.
PS: I see in your profile that you've also posted in the PPC forum about the effects of Match Driver on the suggestion tool, at:
[webmasterworld.com...]
It's more important than ever to use multiple tools to find your most useful keyword combinations. Overture is not reflecting real actual searches anymore. Order and proximity of your top KW are important for optimizing ranking for the most valuable seach phrases. Fuzziness = funny business?
Match Driver seems to be the culprit.
Bad for SEO: can't find good KWs on OV anymore.
Bad for OV: As a major user of OVs pay per click search engine services I am moving more and more of my accounts away from OV because I can't target those niche KWs anymore.
