Overture Shifting To Default Broad Match

Within the next few weeks, Overture will make a major switch to matching terms on a broad basis, rather than the traditional exact match default it has followed since the company's launch

The change will make it easier for advertisers to gain more traffic, as they'll no longer have to think of each exact term they want to target. This makes tapping into the "tail" of search queries, the relatively low-volume searches that happen, easier to target.

The change will likely increase Overture's revenues, as well. Not only will advertisers probably to target more terms, but they'll also likely pay more as previously low cost terms get rolled into the same bid price as more expensive terms.

Unlike Overture, Google has offered default broad matching from when it started its own pay-per-click AdWords program. Now, Overture's system will become more Google-like in terms of targeting, though Google's system will still offer more advertiser control.

In particular, Google's keyword matching options allow exact, phrase and broad matching to be individually selected. Overture's new system will simply allow a choice between exact and broad matching. However, like Google, advertisers will have the option to use "negative" (Google's term) or "excluded" (Overture's term) words to ensure their ads don't show up if particular word also appears in a query.

Webtrade were informed of this change by Overture this morning, the implementation date of the proposed changes is the 2nd October 2004.

When the change happens, all new ads will automatically have broad matching enabled. Advertisers can choose to deselect this option on an ad-by-ad basis and fall back to Overture's traditional exact matching, or what it will continue to call "standard match." Advanced match will completely replace the broad and phrase match type option Overture introduced last year.

Existing ads in European markets will automatically have broad matching enabled, Overture said. Advertisers will have to manually move these back to standard match, if that's what they prefer. In other markets, including the US, existing ads will remain using standard match, if that's what was previously selected

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