I recently posted about research findings that proved clickthrough rates diminished for AdWords users who included broad match. Now comes a thread over at Webmaster World, in which folx discuss how their broad-match results have gotten totally out of control. Google’s advice? Use negative keywords - more specifically, negative *exact-match* keywords!

I couldn’t possibly make this up; I’m not that bright and have little time for idle thought. Here’s a snip from the first post in the thread:

When we sent this information to Google, they replied:

It is possible for two-word keywords to expand to one-word keywords if that one word is highly relevant. In my case, they said “widget” had a 4% CTR and therefor Google judged this to be highly relevant to its users. They also suggested I use the negative exact match -[widget]

This concerns me.

First of all, when does expanding a two-word keyword reduce it to one single word? Expanding means less?

Secondly, why have they now placed the onus on their advertisers to find negatives for broad matches that they’re not even bidding on?

Thirdly, why are Google now deciding when to ignore certain words within your broad matches, and reduce them to single words?

Fourthly, why are Google doing this so silently? If we hadn’t spotted this in our logs, we’d never have known.

The rest of the thread contains highlights of other users’ experiences. What I noticed there is what SEOers have been saying since the Florida Update in 2003: Google makes changes to search-index, AdWords and AdSense algorithms, and inflicts them suddenly on their user base - including paying AdWords customers - without so much as a “by your leave, guv’nah.”

Having Matt Cutts make cryptic comments about what Google might do in the future is no substitute for actual, formal notices sent in advance to customers. Press releases are nice, too.

Yes, I know - but it makes feel better to say it anyway.