Google not too long ago added another sort of broad match called “session-based”. This is the AdWords side of personalized search results.

What happens is: searchers continue to see ads based on earlier search queries.

Problem: Irrelevant Searches Within the Same Session

Some AdWords advertisers report fairly irrelevant ads showing up after a searcher has changed the focused of their searches.

You can see what those queries are via the Search Query Report, and you can exclude them with negative keywords, but how could you ever exclude every irrelevant search someone might type in after changing their search focus? You can’t.

Quantifying The Effects of Session-Based Broad Match

Richard Fergie over at the SEOptimise blog wrote up some stats on broad session based match results, but the results I saw recently for a Fuel consulting client (Amazing Wine Club) were quite different in some ways, so I wanted to add to that conversation here.

As Richard said…

Just under 2% of all broad match queries were session based. As speculated, I think this number will depend a lot on your vertical and how much you bid per click.

Here’s a comparison of our results and those for Richard’s client (and I wish Richard had mentioned the vertical of that client):

Observations

• The CTR is artificially inflated because it’s based on very unique queries. This is like an ad that temporarily has a 30,000% ROI because it happened to get a sale in its first few clicks- the performance looks better than it really is.
• The CTR comparison is an average per query, not overall, so it’s much higher and similar to the broad-session-based CTR number.
• Conversion rate and cost per conversion differences between Richard’s client and mine are striking. A 91% higher cost per conversion is a major difference. Even though session-based were only 10% of all broad match, AdWords has significantly reduced the ROI of broad-match here.

Opinion

The broad-session-based feature, in my opinion, is yet another of the maddening areas where AdWords refuses to give the advertiser full control- whether because it’s a lower priority for them or because it fulfills other organizational or financial goals, the advertiser loses out here.

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Global Search Market Grows, Google Still Leads

July’s latest global search market study has been released by comScore, and just like previous months’ results, Google still leads the pack followed by Yahoo, Chinese search engine Baidu and Microsoft. Overall global search market also registered a big increase – 113 billion searches were conducted in July 2009 which is a 41% leap from the same month last year.

Expectedly, Google Sites got the biggest global market share with 76.7 billion searches conducted on all its sites.  Yahoo follows at a distant second with 8.9 billion searches. While Chinese search engine Baidu is at third place with 8 billion searches and Microsoft with with only 3.3 billion searches.

Almost all of the top search properties worldwide have experienced considerable growth in their search query volume. Again, of the top three major U.S. search engine, Google leads the pack with 58% change followed by Microsoft with 41% change. Yahoo hardly grows with only 8% change.

Now that is the interesting part of this comScore study. Microsoft’s total search query volume worldwide may not be as big as Yahoo or Google but the percented change might be telling us something. Worldwide users may also be testing out Microsoft’s Bing, or Microsoft’s marketing strategy may be starting to get worldwide attention.

It’s still a long way to go before Bing reaches Yahoo’s point mark. But if it will be able to sustain its growth rate, it might actually reach that point sooner than we can think,

Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.

Google shares advance after Goldman report

NEW YORK -- Google Inc. shares advanced Thursday after Goldman Sachs predicted accelerating sales growth for the Web search leader.

Analyst James Mitchell added the Mountain View, Calif.-based company to Goldman's "Conviction Buy" list in a note to investors late Wednesday.


Yahoo! BuzzAn uptick in search ad spending in Europe, a growing share of the online display ad market and easier year-over-year comparisons should help Google ( GOOG - news - people ) in the coming quarters, Mitchell said.

The recession has not reversed Google's upward trajectory, but it has weighed on the company's revenue. For the April-June quarter, revenue was up just 3 percent over the previous year. Until the fourth quarter of 2008, the Google's revenue hadn't fallen below a 30 percent growth rate.

Mitchell said he expects growth to return to the high teens or better over the next year, a trend that should boost the company's stock. He raised his target price for shares to $560 from $510.