Thanks for the kind words and the Sphinns.  I just got back from SMX West and dropped into Sphinn and was pleased to see that the article resonated with others. 
  

This idea of tailoring the sites to better match the target audience has been on my mind a lot lately.  I recently acquired a client whose main target audience is women.  The client had a professional looking web site and the site ranked well on the "coolness" metric, but it wasn't converting well.  As I started to decipher why the pages weren't performing I started making recommendations for changes that would make the site more appealing to women.  It worked; the client immediately saw improvements in conversions. 

The essence of the article is give people what they want and you'll be rewarded.  It's back to basic marketing.  It takes a little longer to do things right, but it usually pays off. 

Oh and Torka, you'll always be one of my heroes too.   :-)

Jeremy – count your blessings.  Your experience is the exception rather than the rule here.

Personally, I'd say an ad distributor that shows an ad for "Ladies Golf Clothes/Shoes" when I searched for "women's perfume" is seriously flawed. 

PPC advertisers have been observing this phenomena for several months – as Mike mentioned in the article it has been in discussion and speculated about over at WebMasterWorld and other places.  What is different now is the explanation for the behavior has been confirmed by Google engineers - that the ad is definitely being displayed based on the user's previous search query. 

Showing ads based on the previous query results in non-relevant ads being displayed and that does not enhance the user experience .  The only thing it does is improve Google's revenue by maximizing the bid price and quantity of ads that they display.

Sorry for the rant, but I'm tired of hearing how Google is all about the user experience and then they pull a stunt like this that severely degrades that very experience.

I have been thinking about this whole previous query situation.  I have to applaud Google for their creativity, but often with innovation comes unforeseen problems.  My concern is that for advertisers with high bid prices who do not want their ads to show for non relevant searches, this new technique for determining which ads display can be very expensive.

I'll agree with Tim and Jeremy that there may be cases where the previous search query may be related and may work to your advantage, but showing your ads for non-relevant queries is normally not a good practice.  
 

Think about it, the problem with showing an ad for a non-relevant query  is that many searchers still click on the ad – relevant or not - and the advertiser is charged for the click. 

It is for this reason that one of the first things you do in PPC Optimization 101 is to ensure your ads don't show for non-relevant queries.  If you can keep the ads from showing in the first place you don't have to worry about a searcher clicking on the ad and your client doesn't have to worry about paying for it. 

I also wanted to clarify something.   The previous search issue isn't isolated to Expanded Broad Match.   It affects all match types - so switching to exact or phrase doesn't cure this problem.  Switching can cure a lot of weirdness with EBM, but not this problem. If you're running adWords, you are affected by the previous query issue.

Okay – I'm out of here.  It's a lovely Fall day and meant to be spent outdoors.  Enjoy.

When the Expanded Broad Match first arrived in 2003 I loved it.  It discovered new keyword opportunities and was a fast way to drive high volumes of traffic to a site.  One had to continually add negative keywords to ensure the ads displayed for relevant searches, but things ran pretty well for a couple of years.

Lately however, the search queries that our ads are displaying for using broad match - well, they defy logic.  Google has expanded the "expanded possibilities" of search queries to beyond what makes any possible sense.  I used to be able to look at the terms my ads were showing for and see the logic jump.  I may not have always liked the logic, but there was logic there and the simple fix was to just add the term to the negative list and go on.  Now, when I look at the search queries my ads are displaying for with Broad match it's just plain silly - and dangerous.  The ads will show for totally non-relevant terms. 
 
Over at Webmaster World (http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adwords/3371081.htm)  Brad Geddes (eWhisper) suggested that Google add a 4th matching option and bring back "original broad match".  Brad – sounds like the perfect solution and the answer that many PPC managers are pleading for.  Google, are you listening?