Question about Google's exact versus phrase match

11 years ago

Hello,

The symbols use in that Google page are wrong. It should be the opposite, "keyword" is the exact match and the [keyword] should be the phrase match.

I do a search on "women's hat", it show 937,000 results, but the [women's hat] it show 92,200,000 results. This show that "keyword" is the exact match and the [keyword] is the phrase match. The reason is simple, the exact match should always show a lesser result than the phrase match.

Hope this will help you out.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8562257].message }}

dropout

11 years ago

What yeoh says is not right, you might have misunderstood the question yeoh.

In AdWords (and BingAds for that matter), [keyword] is exact match and "keyword" is phrase match. The page you have linked to SozzledBoot is correct.

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8562566].message }}

SozzledBoot

11 years ago

Now these are interesting replies and I thank you both. You have demonstrated the controversy exactly.

What yeoh has suggested seems logically correct and is the traditional and most published view; yet what dropout has said represents what Google itself actually describes in many of its own pages and what others in the business of keyword research and SEO have picked up and made comments on.

To dropout I would ask why you think a great many Internet Marketers agree with yeoh. Is it simply tradition? If so, why haven't I seen even one keyword/SEO expert write a complete article or published a book on your version of things?

To yeoh I would ask why Google itself seems to disagree with your version in their descriptive pages (and not just the Google page I referred to here)?

That's the mystery folks; and I really don't know what version is correct

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8563276].message }}

Marketaire

11 years ago

Originally Posted by SozzledBoot

Now these are interesting replies and I thank you both. You have demonstrated the controversy exactly.

What yeoh has suggested seems logically correct and is the traditional and most published view; yet what dropout has said represents what Google itself actually describes in many of its own pages and what others in the business of keyword research and SEO have picked up and made comments on.

To dropout I would ask why you think a great many Internet Marketers agree with yeoh. Is it simply tradition? If so, why haven't I seen even one keyword/SEO expert write a complete article or published a book on your version of things?

To yeoh I would ask why Google itself seems to disagree with your version in their descriptive pages (and not just the Google page I referred to here)?

That's the mystery folks; and I really don't know what version is correct

For clarification, the intended use of the keyword tool is to provide keyword level data (which is an average) for your AdWords campaigns, which use the [exact] and "phrase" match types.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8564171].message }}

dropout

11 years ago

First of all, match type only relates to how you tell AdWords/BingAds which keywords you want to be shown under and has nothing to do with SEO.

Secondly, I really do not hope that a lot of internet marketers agree with yeoh, that would confirm my worst prejudices about the lot.

I still am not sure what yeoh was trying to say: no user in the world does searches on Google with [] around the keyword. Again, [] and "" are ways to tell AdWords/BingAds whether you want your ad to be shown only for exact matches [keyword] or phrase matches "keyword".

There is zero mystery here if what we are talking about are match types in AdWords/BingAds which was what you asked about in your original post SozzledBoot.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8563313].message }}

Steve B

11 years ago

I have always questioned the accuracy of the Google Adwords keyword tool regardless of the type of match that you ask for. Yes, a lot of people have relied on the tool, probably because it was "Google" (the king of search) and because it was free.

But there is a concern from search experts (see the past WF threads on this subject) that Google serves up what they want as an "approximation" of what they guess the traffic to be.

If Google's search results are way off, the discussion about how to do a phrase or exact match is pretty pointless.

Steve

Thanks

Signature

Steve Browne, online business strategies, tips, guidance, and resources
SteveBrowneDirect

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8563389].message }}

JamesBorg

11 years ago

Originally Posted by SozzledBoot

Yet every article and book on SEO that I've ever read claims the opposite, IE:

the symbols to use for exact match are "keyword" and for phrase match are [keyword].

Are you certain they claim that, particularly the part about phrase match being [keyword]?

Google's support page is for AdWords advertisers. In AdWords, [keyword] is exact match, and "keyword" is phrase match.

Articles and books on SEO may mention "keyword" as a kind of exact match, but this is when searching on Google. They probably don't mention [keyword] as a kind of phrase match. What they may be doing is following the convention of writing [keyword] to indicate what someone is typing into Google, in which case the brackets aren't meant to be included in what's typed into Google.

Summary:

AdWords advertisers
[exact match] (brackets typed into AdWords)
"phrase match" (quotes typed into AdWords)

Google searchers
[whatever they type into Google] (brackets not typed into Google -- the brackets are simply a writing convention for indicating what's typed into Google)
"whatever they type into Google" (quotes typed into Google)
["whatever they type into Google"] (brackets not typed into Google, quotes typed into Google, so same as previous line, but some writers don't bother to write the brackets when quotes are used)

[ 1 ] Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8563750].message }}

MikeFriedman

11 years ago

It's simple. There is no such thing as broad match or phrase match in the Google search bar. Every search you perform in the search bar is an "exact match" search, technically.

Exact, phrase, and broad matches are conventions used by the keyword tool ONLY. They have nothing to do with how people perform searches.

For example...

If I search for

big firm blue widgets

or I search for

"big firm blue widgets"

they are both would fit in the exact match search data in the Keyword Tool for big firm blue widgets.

[ 1 ] Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8563897].message }}

svetod

11 years ago

Also consider using of Modified Broad. It is a great way to expand campaigns and stay targeted in the same time!

Thanks
1 reply

Signature

Want To Know How I Make Money Online? Read my story http://affiliate-lifestyle.com/
Follow me on Instagram for Daily Inspiration & Free Tips: svetlintodd

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8564208].message }}

SozzledBoot

11 years ago

I'm reading all the replies. Thank you all.

I think both JamesBorg and MikeFriedman together have supplied the most complete answer thus far.

It seems to me that indeed "keyword" = phrase match and [keyword] = exact match when you are researching or advertising using a keyword tool (IE, Keyword Planner, Market Samurai) and not using a search engine per se (IE, Google, Yahoo); but "keyword" = exact match when you are merely searching using a search engine. It tells the search engine that you are only interested in searches that use the exact terms that were typed in (IE, literally) and it yields only literal results as opposed to both literal and semantically related results (IE, which would be the generic keyword without quotes).

Broad match would seem to be the same in both cases: both KW tools and search engine queries on a keyword without any other parameters added would yield both literal and semantically related results.

The terms Exact, Phrase, and Broad are used when talking to a keyword research tool; the quoted or unquoted keyword typed into a search query box are used when talking to a search engine algorithm.

By jove I think I've got it!

Thanks
1 reply

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8564449].message }}

JamesBorg

11 years ago

Originally Posted by SozzledBoot

I'm reading all the replies. Thank you all.

I think both JamesBorg and MikeFriedman together have supplied the most complete answer thus far.

It seems to me that indeed "keyword" = phrase match and [keyword] = exact match when you are researching or advertising using a keyword tool (IE, Keyword Planner, Market Samurai) and not using a search engine per se (IE, Google, Yahoo); but "keyword" = exact match when you are merely searching using a search engine. It tells the search engine that you are only interested in searches that use the exact terms that were typed in (IE, literally) and it yields only literal results as opposed to both literal and semantically related results (IE, which would be the generic keyword without quotes).

Broad match would seem to be the same in both cases: both KW tools and search engine queries on a keyword without any other parameters added would yield both literal and semantically related results.

The terms Exact, Phrase, and Broad are used when talking to a keyword research tool; the quoted or unquoted keyword typed into a search query box are used when talking to a search engine algorithm.

By jove I think I've got it!

Yep, looks good to me, though I referred to "keyword" as a kind of exact match when merely searching. It has the effect you describe when it comes to finding results for searchers, but as Mike noted, Google ignores the searcher's quotes when deciding whether to display an AdWords ad.

It's best to restrict the terms 'exact match', 'phrase match', and 'broad match' to keyword tools and ad campaigns. Google's new keyword tool deals with only exact matches, BTW.

Thanks

{{ DiscussionBoard.errors[8564978].message }}

Question about Google's exact versus phrase match

Trending Topics

Newbie

How did you turn it all around?

A healthy fascination for Hollywood...

best high quality crypto traffic.

Any thoughts on golf's latest phenom...Scottie Scheffler??