A WebmasterWorld thread argues that Google's AdWords search is too inclusive. Why? Well, if you search on keywords, Google will return keywords that match not just the ad title or description, but also the display URL.
The advertiser in the WebmasterWorld thread is upset because one of his affiliates have threatened to drop him and not pay him for the revenue he brought in. Why? Because they are using this search feature and finding that the trademarked term of the company is coming up. But the trademarked term is only displayed in the display URL, not in the title or description of the ad.
For example, a search on .net returns ads that have [.net] in the title, description or display URL.
Rehan said this is not necessarily a bug in the search but rather a "feature." Rehan said:
I found some info at http://adwords.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=53502 ... Apparently sometime in May, Google changed the Sponsored Links results behavior to be an "Ad Search feature" that searches ad text. In other words, before it was essentially "Show ads for the keyword _____" and now it is "Show ads that contain the keyword ______". That's why when you search for brand keywords like "Myspace" or "Yahoo" you see a bunch of ads that contain those words but are not running as ads for those keywords.
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
