Google’s ears must have been burning as we were only recently discussing our frustation over the ‘unique queries’ issue in the (otherwise excellent) search query report that is one of the most useful tools available to the Google Adwords advertiser.
Earlier this week Google announced that they are improving their Search Query Performance Report to now include all search terms used to trigger clicks on ads.
As a PPC Management Company we know more than most the importance of running search query performance reports to see the exact phrases that are being used when an ad is clicked on.
Prior to the changes a proportion of the results returned in the report simply said ‘X unique queries’, which is extremely frustrating as it reveals nothing of any value. The announced changes should put an end to this.
The ‘X unique queries’ was used to represent a list of terms that were used to trigger clicks in very low quantities, maybe just one or two times, so Google did not specify the exact queries because of this reason.
However these terms can often be very important and it would certainly be more beneficial for advertisers to see the terms used, however small the volume, in order to make informed decisions when managing keywords.
From the 19th of May, Google announced that this will no longer be the case and we will no longer see ‘X unique queries’ as a result.
This is because Google will now report all search terms used that resulted in a click on an ad whatever the search volume, as long as the referrer URL has not been blocked.
Due to this update we can now expect to see long lists of results, many with low volume, but they can all help to highlight patterns occurring in the terms used to trigger ads and possibly help to create a list of negative keywords that could be used.
A few tests that we have run today would suggest that it hasn’t been fully rolled out but, assuming that it does prove to be true, this is very welcome news indeed.
