Broad matches - confusion.

5 replies
I have just learnt the hard way not to believe everything that i read on the net.

Google's definition of a broad match, using the search term Counselling California.

If either the word counselling or california appear, with any other text at all, its a match.

Some stuff i have read from SEO blogs was that both words had to appear.. but in any order with any other words. This would be ideal.. wouldn;t it make sense to work like this.. but no.. it doesnt..

A phrase match ie "counselling california" means they have to be in that order.. but just using a broad match for counselling california.. as it turns out.. means that I will match for a search of

I want a holiday to california...

so how do I setup the equivalent of a match that equates to wanting to match the appearance of two kewords, ie counselling california.. in a search term, but in any order.. but providing BOTH appear.

there are literally hundreds of derivates.. ie counselling in california.. near california.. counselling practise california etc.. the list is ridiculous..

How do people go about this?

The problem I have is that In one campaign, I have 3 seperate ad groups

one for Family Counselling, one for Relationship Counselling, and then one for generic counselling.

I had it setup thinking a broad match required both terms (in a two keyword phrase) to be in the search term..

so, I had relationship couselling, couple counselling etc in my relationship group, then in my family group, I had family counselling counselling for parents etc... but what I found .. was because only one word of a keyphrase is required in a broad match, the wrong adds were appearing..

this is newbie question, but I found several sites that mistakenly promote a broad match as having to match both terms, but in any order.

Thanks,
Dean!
#broad #confusion #matches
  • Profile picture of the author mtnbiz
    Google "google keyword tool". This is Google's keyword tool.

    I typed in relationship counseling" and got a list with almost 200 variations. I take the words and add parenthesis ot the whole list and then add brackets and put them all in one big happy list of keywords. Yes, all 600 keywords.

    I throw these into my adwords account and after a week, get rid of the words that don't have any impressions. Then I give it another week and throw away the words that haven't had any clicks.

    After that, I start bringing down my bids per click.

    It is a lot of work, but it needs to be done. You don't want to miss any potential money makers.

    If you have a real good keyword, you might even want to take it and make it its own campaign. If you can get a great CTR, you might be able to bring the bid price down even lower.

    Whole courses have been written about this. These are just the steps I take when I pull my list of keywords together.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lisa Gergets
    Using Google Adwords Keyword Tool, I only search using exact match. That way, I know that people are looking up the exact phrase with no additional words, in exactly the order they are presented.
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  • Profile picture of the author AFD
    I sometimes consider broad matches is I really like the keyword. I think it depends on the supporting keywords with higher exact matches..
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  • Profile picture of the author badboy_Nick
    Yeah, Google is really feeling the credit crunch. If you bid on BLUE widgets in london with BROAD, Google will list your ad for keywords like GREEN widgets in london as well.

    It's called SUPER-Broad match and just another way squeezing as much money out of advertizers as possible. Hey, Google's got shareholders too.
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