Posts Tagged broad match

Earlier today Google released their new broad match modifier to UK and Canadian affiliates. It’s an open beta there and hopefully will come to the U.S. and other countries soon.

According to the Google AdWords blog, the feature allows you to “create keywords that have greater reach than phrase match and more control than broad match.” Hooray! Now, when is it in the U.S.?

Using it is simple, you just put a (+) symbol in front of any of the words in a broad match keyword. Any keyword with the (+) in front of it must appear in the search exactly or as a close variants. Synonyms like “learn” and “study” are not consider to be close variants by Google, nor are related searches, such as “piano” and “keyboard.”

Google gives a nice graphic that demonstrates the reach of the various keyword matching types. Click on the image on the right for a full-size view.

Here are some examples of how Broad Match Modifier works:

Example One

Currently the keyphrase “dvd guitar lessons” might be matched to such unrelated keyphrases as “musical movie dvds.”

Using Broad Match Modifiers though you can limit the possibilities. You can add the (+) to the word “guitar” to be sure that the word “guitar” must appear (or something more similar than “musical.”

Now “dvd +guitar lessons” might still fire on a search for “guitar hero videos.”

So you can qualify it even more. You get the point.

If you are in Canada or the UK, give it a try. Test some things out. And, if there is any way that I can help, let me know.

Learn more about it in the Broad Match Modifier section of AdWords Help.

More information about AdWords in our Ten-Part AdWords for Newbies Series.