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Excellent post there though iam not much into ppc, and come here to read more specifically posts related to seo
Are you sure the feature is gone or have you just listened to one of your PPC minions? Because my negative keyword tool is still here, fully functional and operating!
I think you are quite right about theory #2. I don’t know the status in the US but her we see more and more that Google want’s to sit on chair of the agencies.
Last September I was in Dublin visiting the European HQ. Noticing that they were rapidly building teams wit support an ‘optimizers’’ that directly support the end-users. They set up campaigns, optimize campaigns and dedicated account managers give support. At dinner I asked the EMEA director what their vision was on the agencies. The answer was that that was a very difficult question and that there was enough ‘room’ in the market for agencies and direct support by Google. One week later Google announced the ending of the BPF program in the EMEA countries. Clear enough I would say!
But I’m not at all sure that the dissapearing of the negative keyword tool has anything to do with that….
I’ve heard people report their tool missing as well but I just checked my account, and it is still there. Weird.
Actually guys, don’t confuse the “Edit Campaign Negative Keywords” tool with the “Keyword Tool.” The “Edit” tool simply allows you to edit your *existing* negative keywords and not find new ones. The “Keyword Tool” allowed you search for and to discover potential new negative keywords. That functionality has now been removed.
Negative keyword tool has not gone, but it has changed. To access negative keywords, you run the suggestion tool as normal. The suggestions appear but next to the add arrow it a little drop down arrow. The default add is add as broad match but from the dropdown menu you can choose to add a phrase or exact match, or a negative match, which google will trim down to the suggested negative for you. e.g. you ask for suggestions on widget, google will suggest blue widget, if you click the dropdown “Add as a negative -blue” will appear.
@Dave Wilson: Missed that completely! In my opinion It does not improve the usability to have to define for each word the kind of match, but on the other hand is it now possible to do al the actions in one search query.
@David: “Actually guys, don’t confuse the “Edit Campaign Negative Keywords” tool with the “Keyword Tool.” The “Edit” tool simply allows you to edit your *existing* negative keywords and not find new ones. The “Keyword Tool” allowed you search for and to discover potential new negative keywords. That functionality has now been removed.
No it’s not! Both tools still there!
Here is the question:
Eloi: Do you have a regular AdWords account or are you managing multiple clients?
David: Same questions. Are you running My Client Center?
I haven’t touched my account in a while so I don’t know if this is at all relevant. Could be…
“Negative keyword tool has not gone, but it has changed. To access negative keywords, you run the suggestion tool as normal. The suggestions appear but next to the add arrow it a little drop down arrow. The default add is add as broad match but from the dropdown menu you can choose to add a phrase or exact match, or a negative match, which google will trim down to the suggested negative for you.:
Dave, the negative option no longer exists in any account I checked this morning. It’s not present on the external (logged out) keyword tool either. The help icon (?) indicates it should be there though…
I have access via MCC and direct, doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Just to clarify further: both tools still show up in the user interface – there is a tool called “Edit Campaign Negative Keywords” and there is also a tool called “Keyword Tool.” Both are still there.
The difference is that the functionality of the “Keyword Tool” has now changed significantly. As David Wilson points out in his comment to this post, it is still apparently possible to find and add negative keywords through the Keyword Tool (though I followed his suggestions and I still couldn’t make it work), but the functionality has basically been buried. In the prior version, it was very openly displayed and easy to use.
There’s a screen shot at DP f anyone is interested.
screen shot
David,
It’s definitely not present in all accounts. I imagine some accounts still have access to it…although none that I manage do. I just used it last week for a smaller account so this is definitely something that’s happened in the past few days. Nice catch.
With me it looks the same as the screenshot by Jeremy. But the screenshot is not the optionlist on keyword level…. I do have the ‘negative’ option. Thoug, the first word on the list is is the word on which the search query is done. This word you can not ad as an negative, but the following words do have the option ‘negative’.
It’s possible that Google is phasing this feature out slowly, trying to keep things quiet.
Be it as it may, there is a definite trend towards Google gaining more and more control over campaigns. Although the level of control AdWords provides is unprecedented, “do it yourself” tools are slowly being phased out while new tools that allow Google to make “suggestions” are being introduced.
Of course, Google argues that this is done in order to make advertisers’ lives easier and make sure they have less to worry about but ultimately this is a profit maximization tactic, IMHO.
Not that there is anything wrong with that
OK, here’s my screenshot showing where you have to look now. As wilbert points out, the keyword exactly matching your search cannot be added as a negative in this manner.
Wilbert – I see what you’re saying….maybe we’ve jumped the gun.
I run keyword tool report for “Arizona”. The first word returned on the keyword suggestion list is “Arizona”. It won’t let me add that as a negative. If I go to the second word listed, “phoenix Arizona,” it let’s me add it as a negative. Same with all the other words in the list.
I guess I’ve never tried to the add the first word (since it’s the word you entered to start with) as a negative so I had never seen the negative option missing.
I had not noticed it before and probably would not have for a long time if it was not for this post and the comment from Dave. Thanx.
But… this is distracting us from the very interesting issue that is brought up by David: ‘Is Google going to play the role of the agencies’? I would consider that sereously if I was Google. During my visit to Google the focus was on 3 things: video, video, video. It is obvious that they want a bigger piece of the cake of the budgets of large advertisers. That’s what the want te agencies to focus on. Wat they miss in my opinion is that there al a whole lot of small advertisers that do not have the big budgets and never will digg into the ‘rich media’. Those smaller advertisers do also lack the knowledge to run a good campaign. With an automated campaign it is a lot more difficult to measure the results. Dissapointment will follow I expect. Here is an important role for the (smaller) agencies to add knowledge, and keep the advertisers getting (measurable) results and keep advertizing….. Hope that Google will realise that in time.
It seems to me that the leveled playing field that was SEM not too long ago was a temporary phenomenon. Money talks, and search industry is no different. The pie will always get split between the big boys and the smaller advertisers will be left with crumbs.
The niche is liberal for as long as the companies with huge budgets are not paying attention. The small businesses will play by the rules set by Google and others because they have no choice. They will rant and rave but they’ll still play.
Google is starting to court bigger advertisers because they know the small Mom ‘N’ Pop’s have few options. They came in with idealist beliefs in equal access to info and by extension to the markets but they are selling out, just like everyone else before them.
” I could even see Google creating two user interfaces, one with the bells and whistles experts want, and the other with rudimentary reporting that novices desire.”
Well, they already have the “starter” and “regular’ interfaces, but I think you mean something more wide-spread.
I don’t think Google is going after the SEM industry. I think Google is diving straight for the fat – of the lazy majority. These are the ones who will not hire a professional PPC manager at all, or at least will refuse to pay reasonable rates for their services. There are THOUSANDS of these people who are running adwords campaigns and have never even thought about conversion rate.
I know this because my phone rings daily with a dozen of them. My #1 rank in Google for “Google Adwords Consultant” brings ‘em in, and they’re clueless and cheap 90% of the time. They are wasting money right and left, but won’t hire anyone for more than $25 an hour. Think Superpages replacements here.
IMO, Google *wants* that sweet sticky mess. It’s just laying there for the taking.
“Theory #2 also puts Google into direct competition with search marketing agencies. If Google really can create an automated system that delivers ROI for advertisers, what’s the value of search agencies?”
I agree with this. I am a SEM agency with MNC customers, but Google is going direct to my premium customers! I can’t believe they did that.
That is a clear indication to me that they want to cut out the middleman – me.
Anyone else experienced that?
Definitely, they confuse the hell out of my clients – Yahoo! does it too, though. Even as a Search Marketing Ambassador and a Google Adwords Professional. But one time they did call me, but I think it was by accident since I put my phone/email on my clients’ account information.
I honestly think they “hadn’t considered” the manager / adwords professional / MCI folks before starting these telemarketing campaigns. They just did a spreadsheet, sorted it by monthly spend, and started dialing.
Google is diving straight for the fat – of the lazy majority. These are the ones who will not hire a professional PPC manager at all, or at least will refuse to pay reasonable rates for their services. There are THOUSANDS of these people who are running adwords campaigns and have never even thought about conversion rate.
That would be a short sightet policy. Due to the still increasing numbers of advertizers and raising CPC’s it would become unprofitable for those ‘thousands’ (probably a lot more!) to maintain a campaign. At that time they (and Google) need party’s that can help them make visable what the results of their advertising are. If not, they will quit advertising. Al those togheter is still a lot of money for Google I guess.