what would be an explanation to this?

[ubaidabcd]

I use a keyword software to create keywords and I usually create large lists of keywords and it takes some time to filter irrelevant keywords. Sometimes there are irrelevant keywords that get through and some how these keywords get more hits than the relevant keywords!

Example:

I have a campaign in a niche with a phone service. I noticed these keywords got through, "toolbar", "search", and "top". These are the top performing keywords (cost wise)!! Out of a 1000 keywords that are relevant to this niche, these got the most hits! I doubt they converted so I deleted them, I did the correct thing right to delete them right?

Same thing happened with another campaign, I'm an affiliate for a computer software, and I started getting hits on "repair", "cheats", "game" and different types of software's in different categories. As soon as I started this campaign I started getting all kinds of hits on irrelevant keywords, I really didn't filter this keyword list as much as I should've, after seeing these clicks, I just stopped the campaign.

Why are people clicking my ad when it's completely irrelevant to their search topic? It doesn't make sense to me. I'm also on yahoo, so I don't think I"m getting fraudlent clicks from bots.

Could it be a possibility that irrelevant keywords can lead to conversions if somebody sees an offer that they didn't think about but after seeing the ad they got interested? Whereas if it's a relevant keyword meaning your offer is what they had in mind but when they search they see a full page of results on that subject, and you get a lot more competition which leads to less clicks?

 

[Drake]

Off topic will convert less, much less.

On topic will convert better but might have 2 or 3 ads right next to it. O well.

The off topic keywords will drag your CTR down and hurt your quality score, especially on Google.

I would clean up your list.

 

[ubaidabcd]

Off topic will convert less, much less.

On topic will convert better but might have 2 or 3 ads right next to it. O well.

The off topic keywords will drag your CTR down and hurt your quality score, especially on Google.

I would clean up your list.

Is QS the same as Quality Index on Yahoo? Since one of my ads is at full 5 bars with the keyword list I have currently.

 

[Drake]

Ya thats the same I believe, but G00gle is crankier. Havent used Yahoo in a while, forgot the interface....

If you track all your clicks for conversions you might either love or hate that off topic traffic. Or track the highest traffic one and see what it does.

 

[Catt]

You ask why people are clicking on your ad when it is irrelevant to their search, I think it could just be curiousity and the very fact that your ad is different to the others, maybe they think that it is another angle to their question, i.e. they don't know how irrelevant it really is until they click on it.
.
I think there is a real lesson there.

 

[halfpc]

I have a campaign in a niche with a phone service. I noticed these keywords got through, "toolbar", "search", and "top". These are the top performing keywords (cost wise)!! Out of a 1000 keywords that are relevant to this niche, these got the most hits! I doubt they converted so I deleted them, I did the correct thing right to delete them right?

Same thing happened with another campaign, I'm an affiliate for a computer software, and I started getting hits on "repair", "cheats", "game" and different types of software's in different categories. As soon as I started this campaign I started getting all kinds of hits on irrelevant keywords, I really didn't filter this keyword list as much as I should've, after seeing these clicks, I just stopped the campaign.

Why are people clicking my ad when it's completely irrelevant to their search topic? It doesn't make sense to me. I'm also on yahoo, so I don't think I"m getting fraudlent clicks from bots.

Could it be a possibility that irrelevant keywords can lead to conversions if somebody sees an offer that they didn't think about but after seeing the ad they got interested? Whereas if it's a relevant keyword meaning your offer is what they had in mind but when they search they see a full page of results on that subject, and you get a lot more competition which leads to less clicks?

I track each and every individual keyword to see what they do and how they convert .. I would never kill a keyword because of my own assumption that it must be the wrong traffic so it might not be converting.
Some KWs do behave strangely, so just track everything and kill what does not convert.
You can also pay more money than competitors if you know how much of a margin you have, but if you go on assumptions, you might as well be blind.

About the KW "cheat", I am not using it but I think I had found that there's plenty of people looking for cheats and not enough results so obviously some of the traffic would spill over.
I have similar KWs that aren't related to my niche but end up converting just the same as they are so cheap to buy.
Strangely enough in these cases google don't care about people searching for something and getting a completely unrelated ad.

Lastly, Yahoo are quite good at paying for shit traffic, but paying THEM for traffic, never worked out for me.
Look at mylot.com
That's where your ads might end up! Good luck trying to convert from that kind of traffic.