Exact and Phrase search on google.

OK. I've got a question that I need cleared up.

If I perform a search on google for "abc widgets" (with quotes) and I see sponsored results. Does this mean that these advertisers are bidding on abc widgets as an exact term or can it be that they have bid on "widgets" as a broad match and are appearing for my phrase search.

The same question applies to a search for [abc widgets] (with square brackets). I see sponsored results. Will advertisers show that are bidding on widgets as a broad term or do the advertisers which show have to be bidding on abc widgets as an exact match.

 

This does not mean they are bidding on exact matches. If you think about it, someone with a broad match for "widgets" in your case could return any number of combinations including "abc widgets". From what I've read thus far, there is no way of identifying which keyword match a competitor is using. Hosnestly, it probably doesn't matter a whole lot; stick with the matching type that brings in the most quality traffic you can afford.

 

It goes a little further.

Thanks to expanded matching, they could be broad-matching on thingy-bobs (which are like widgets, but smaller and made of wood).

As far as I can tell, putting quotes or square brackets around a search query when performing a google search makes no difference to the PPC results that the search returns.