In late February, Google launched an AdWords Beta titled Automatic Matching Beta that is designed at driving additional impressions and clicks for advertisers…and revenue for Google. This beta is an expansion on previous changes Google made when it changed “Broad” matching to “Expanded Broad” matching. With Expanded Broad matching, if a searcher performs two searches, Google will try to present a result based on the initial query. For example, a search for “MP3” yields results all about that subject. Next, I search for “accessories,” and Google presents me with multiple results, including one for “MP3 accessories.” The idea being that I am researching MP3s, so a search for accessories must be related to that subject.

Automatic Matching focuses on working with an advertisers daily spend. Google now is examining campaigns that are trending to spend below its Daily Cap and then altering them so they will deliver more ads. For example, under this system, if a company is bidding on sneaker keywords and isn’t pacing to spend its Daily Cap, Google will start to show their ads on similar keywords – such as slippers or shoes. The thought process is that since you are searching for sneakers, you might be interested in slippers or shoes. In some ways this is counterintuitive to what search is; if I asked about sneakers, why would I want slippers? There will be transparency of what’s going on, so keyword ads that are shown based on Automatic Matching will be indicated in a Search Query Performance Report. The beta only affects paid search and search syndication traffic; vertical and content targeting is not included. Keyword quality scores and minimum bids are not affected at this time.
If you’re an advertiser that is looking to drive traffic or impressions, this may be something to look forward to. The tradeoff is the limitation in being able to customize copy for these expanded keywords beforehand. If the focus of your search marketing is to drive conversions based on a CPA or ROI goal, you’ll need to weigh the benefits and consequences of this feature.

Regardless of if Automatic Matching becomes a part of AdWords or remains limited in beta, the idea brings to light the following three things to always consider in your existing campaigns.

Test Match Types – While Broad matching in Google may drive more impressions, the best way to confirm that it’s the right solution for certain high volume/high cost keywords is to test it against Exact or Phrase match and look at the results.

Negative Matching – Leveraging the ability to use negative matching in Google is a great way to ensure targeted users are seeing your ads. It has the ability to raise the Clickthrough Rate (CTR) for individual keywords, which may lead to driving subsequent clicks at a lower cost.

Using Search Query Reports – This report is full of insights. It can help drive decisions on what keywords you should consider adding as negatives, or add to the account so you can control the message on a more granular level. As the search marketplace gets more complex, this is a very useful tool.

Focusing on these core principles will help improve performance while also providing learnings.

Article by Luigi Ferguson

To steal from The Buggles, it looks like Google is starting to integrate videos into their paid search ad offering. It appears that what Google has taken from the learnings of recent eye tracking studies done on Universal Search is that searchers are more drawn to pictures or video clips than to text based results. While this is a welcome idea, it seems somewhat hypocritical for a company that was always adamant about not cluttering the user experience with pesky graphical ads. Looking at this with “don’t be evil” glasses, it seems that Google is simply giving the people what they want. However, video ads will help Google in a few other ways.

As mentioned, prior to Universal Search, eye-tracking studies all showed that most people didn’t veer out of the “golden triangle.” In the triangle, the majority of eyes remained focused on the top 5 results (2 paid and 3 organic) in the middle of the page, with little to no scanning of the right side of the page. This left Google with very little areas of the page to monetize against. With Universal Search, the eyes begin to scan more of a page’s real estate, as depicted here. By integrating video into their PPC offering Google can automatically push eyes to the paid section of their real estate. Google will also be able to learn a lot more about how people click and convert (if you have Google Analytics). This information could later be factored into the pricing part of the quality score.

Article by Joshua Palau

In some ways the Internet is still like the old west. Ticket scalping, gambling, slander, and invasions of privacy are all illegal, with legislated laws, unless they happen online. Somehow, I can be arrested at Yankee Stadium for selling tickets, but if I put them on StubHub with my name, address, and PayPal account, than it’s completely legal. The challenge with legislation is that the government has to try and play catch-up while not stifling the growth of the industry. This ambiguity, coupled with a little thing called the first amendment, is why the recent government decision to shut down Wikileaks was met with a high level of concern.

Wikileaks claims to have posted millions of government and corporate documents to expose wrongdoing. Site advocates claim that this is all protected by free speech. The detractors claim that some of this information is confidential and should not be shared with the public. The journalism business banks on confidential informants and whistleblowers that expose companies for wrongdoing. Depending on the severity, these stories either are played out in the media or find their way to court. Regardless, the fact remains that in order for the public to be aware, the rights of free speech need to be protected. So what does this have to do with Search?

There is the cliché about a tree falling in the woods and if people hear the sound. The same holds true for Search. If something doesn’t exist in the Search results, is it news? You may believe that your company has an image problem, but if you perform a search and don’t see that problem listed in the engines, how will people find out and is it really a problem? Since Wikileaks is crawled by search engines, any action taken by the government to censor or take down the site means your search results are being altered. Relying on the Internet as your sole news source is kind of like believing every Oliver Stone movie is fact. However, it is the resource that most of us turn to as a starting point. The shutdown order on Wikileaks has been overturned, but this fight is far from over.

Article by Joshua Palau

In this week’s episode of Yahoo! Bachelor…
Since the AOL deal worked out so well, Time Warner figures why not pursue a deal with Yahoo!

Yahoo! has launched a new addition to their mobile arsenal called onePlace. The plan is to integrate onePlace into their larger Go mobile offerings. onePlace is a mobile bookmarking system that allows you to integrate news feeds, websites, videos, images, etc. into your phone, and allows syncing content already personalized on Yahoo!. onePlace will promote links to content on Digg, YouTube, Facebook, and other non-Yahoo! properties. Read more about Yahoo! onePlace.

PageRank confusing you? William Flaiz, SEO and Web Analytics VP, simplifies PageRank.