Pleeeeaaasssee.   Does Google really think they are doing advertisers a “favor” with this one?  If so, Google please stop doing me favors Concentrate on problems like noting accounts under review, or getting the customer service department to reply to people in a timely manner.  Don’t ‘help’ us with expanding broad match to what I would call irrelevant search queries.  Does this expanded broad match reflect Google’s love of relevance and quality score?  Very questionable to say the least.

Let it be known that I am not a fan of broad match keywords.  They have their place when extensive use of -negative keywords are implemented but in general I never use them and here is why.

A web design client asked me to look over her AdWords account for her because it was not producing any inquiries.

In looking at her keywords list (mostly broad match) I immediately was concerned so headed to the report center to run a Search Query Performance Report. 

Below is a *sampling* of the key keyword list.  I have provided a sampling but rest assured I did not remove any keywords like “aerosmith” or “at t” or “italian stuffed peppers”.  There were variations on the below keywords that were removed.

Sample of Keywords

Guided tour italy,  guided tour of umbria,  italian guided tour, italian tour, italian tours, italian vacation tuscany, italian vacation umbria, italy guided tours, italy holiday, italy travel package, italy travel tours, “holiday tours to italy”, “italian guided tours”, “italy tour vacations”, “vacation tours to italy”

Not the greatest list but pretty much exactly what I expect to see from most new AdWords advertisers. 

Now this is why I am so miffed.  Expanded Broad Match allowed her to come up (and get clicks) on the following queries.  Note: that only a fraction of the bogus traffic is noted here.

Search Query Performance Report

Search Query Performance Report

Bogus Traffic: aerosmith concert, at t, france, italian stuffed peppers, justin timberlake concert ticket, porno italy, florence italy car rentals, curtains tuscany, arabian jasmine plant grand duke of tuscany.

Great Huh?  I know *how* this happened.  Expand ‘tours’ to ‘concert’, expand ‘europe’ to ‘France’, expand ‘italian vacations’ to ‘italian stuffed peppers’. Make sense?  Of course not!  Remember these are not just impressions – she paid money to Google for clicks on these search queries.  Good to know if you market ‘italian tours’ that Google thinks ‘justin timberlake concert tickets’ is relevant.  Truly frightening!  What I do not know is *why* would Google do this?  Considering they are all about relevance and quality.  This seems to degrade the quality to me if I see a Advertisement that reads “Group Tours to Italy” when I am looking for tickets to the “aerosmith concert”… Right?  My real concern is broad match is the default option for AdWords.  Most advertisers are just following along.

One of these clicks (curtains tuscany) cost her $4.30, another  (arabian jasmine plant grand duke of tuscany) $3.27.

How to you fix that? 

Stop using broad match.  Take control over your account.  Run regular reports on search queries.  Switch your keywords over to “phrase” and [exact match] now.  It may take a little time to come up with all the variables of *guided italian tour* in phrase match but the results will be better CTR, lower costs and higher conversions.  Really, what is there to loose?…besides more of your money.