New AdWords matching option discovered – ‘the bogus broad match type’

October 21, 2007

Most PPC enthusiasts will be aware of the four common AdWords matching types:

  • Broad
  • Phrase
  • Exact
  • Negative (can be broad, phrase or exact)

Here is a quick overview of what keyword matching is all about, for the non PPC folks:

Keyword matching allows you to control how precise a user’s search must be to trigger your ad on Google search pages. Defining how broadly or narrowly your keywords are targeted helps you reach the audience you want. Source AdWords Learning Center

However based on AdWords definition of match types, I think I have found a new one and I am naming it the 'bogus broad match'.

So what is the bogus broad match type?

Good question, it seems to be a hybrid of the broad match type and the ability to bid on partially related keywords. How and when it evolved I am uncertain, although I am pretty sure of its existence.

Let's look at the characteristics of a broad match first:

  • Other words are included in the query
  • Terms in the query are not written in the same sequence as your keyword
  • The query is similar to your keyword. This includes plurals and synonyms.
  • All the terms must be present

The bogus broad match takes all the above characteristics except for the last one "“ not all the terms have to be present.

By this I have had an experience of bidding on a two worded keyphrase and the ad showing for only a one worded search term.

An example of this would be to bid on the keyword phrase 'bank holiday' on broad match and for your ad to be shown for the search term 'holiday'. This would result in unqualified paid traffic landing on your site, eeek!

You may wander how I discovered what the actual search term was "“ this was not through a third-party analytics package, it was though AdWords very own Search Query Report.

This is difficult to prove without providing login details, and I am curious to see if anyone else has experienced a sighting of the bogus broad match type.

How to overcome the bogus broad match type?

If you believe in that the bb match type existing there is a way to overcome it and it involves the lesser known negative embedded match type. This did the trick for me, but seems a little unnecessary:

e.g.
Bank holiday
"“[holiday]

You may have to include embedded negative plurals and synonyms "“ although I have not had a problem with this.

It is always good practice to run search query report every now and then as part of campaign optimisation and if you do, you may encounter the bogus broad match - be warned! Of course, it could be a blip in the search query reporting or perhaps even a blip in my reporting - although I would like to say the latter is unlikely to be true as I have experienced it several times in the last couple of months. Anyone else seen the same?

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Posted by Joe Williams | Filed Under adwords 

Comments

3 Responses to “New AdWords matching option discovered – ‘the bogus broad match type’”

  1. Stephan Miller on October 29th, 2007 6:43 pm

    Thanks for the tip. I didn’t know you could specify a match with negatives.

  2. Don on October 29th, 2007 11:13 pm

    Joe,

    You’re basically referring to what has been called “expanded broad matching”, where Google will show ads that in the past would be not be delivered, but are now based on past search queries. It’s partly due to Google trying to get into the Behavioral targeting game. I first noticed my accounts being served with these back in June/July, but news hit the Blogosphere around late August.

    Instead of going nuts with exact negatives, you can also just remove the broad match from your keywords, and work with only phrase and exact.

    Your traffic will be a higher quality than what you get with expanded broad, which almost always means higher conversion rate and lower CPA.

    Sources:
    http://www.semclubhouse.com/expanded-broad-match-googles-eps-earning-per-share-equalizer.html
    http://www.seroundtable.com/archives/003196.html
    http://www.webpronews.com/blogtalk/2007/06/19/google-adwords-expanded-broad-match

  3. Joe Williams on October 30th, 2007 1:26 am

    Hi Don,

    Thanks for the links - I was aware of the existence of the expanded broad match to a degree, although not fully - I am glad to see it wasn’t me just going mad!

    I agree that exact and phrase are the way to go, but sometimes it is just not practical or the volumes are not sufficient.

    Joe

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