Google keyword matching changes
Google has announced changes to the way the keyword matching works for broad and phrase matching.
They claim it will simplify matching, and won’t likely impact existing campaigns.
Google are also using using ‘additional signals’ to refine the matching accuracy.
I guess we’ll see what happens when it rolls out mid-February 2021.
So whats changed?
So whats different about this latest change by Google?
Term Order in Phrase matching
Definitely the order of terms in phrase matching
How Google Search Ads work
At a very simplistic level, Google’s ads are displayed when a search matches criteria used in a search campaign.
While that sounds simple enough, it has evolved into a far more complex arrangement.
Keyword Match Types?
The Google Ads specialist who builds or maintains your campaigns can finesse the keyword filtering using ‘match types’. These allow the campaign constructor to target very specific Google searches, while avoiding similar but irrelevant searches.
The match types are:
Broad match – a very loose match, with no matching syntax.
dog house could potentially match a search like dog mat
Modified Board Match – a variant of broad match. Individual terms are tagged with a +
eg +dog +house will match the blue dog house
Phrase match – a sequence of words The syntax is to surround the phrase match terms in quotes
eg “dog house” will match the search “blue dog house” but not “dog blue house”
Exact Match – the match is exactly the search Exact syntax is to surround the exact match with square brackets
eg [dog house] will match dog house, but not blue dog house searches
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Keyword match type history.
- 2014: Google ended support for the “pure” exact match type when it started requiring all campaigns to use close variants. At the time, close variants included plurals, misspellings and other variations of exact match and phrase match keywords.
- 2017: Word order and function words were added to close variants for exact match.
- 2018: Google began matching search terms that have the same intent as the given keyword when it added same-meaning words to exact match close variants. This included implied words and paraphrases.
- 2019: Same-meaning close variants were extended to phrase match and broad match modifiers.
An online marketer with deep experience in Sales & Marketing as well as technical skills accumulated over the many years of working in this industry. He has been knee-deep in websites and online marketing since the mid 80’s.
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