What is phrase match in Google Ads, and what does it match?

Because it once did. Three changes, each announced on a Google Ads Help page, moved exact and phrase match from matching words to matching meaning:

• September 2018, exact match. Google said exact match would match the intent of a search, instead of just the specific words: implied words, paraphrases and other terms with the same meaning.
• July 2019, phrase match. Until then a phrase match keyword showed on a search that included the keyword, or a close variant of that exact phrase, with other words before or after it. Google announced that it would also match words in the search that share the same meaning as the keyword. Its example was "lawn mowing service" showing on grass cutting service near me.
• February to July 2021, broad match modifier. Google folded broad match modifier’s behavior into phrase match. Since July 2021 both show ads on searches that include the meaning of the keyword, which Google calls more expansive than the former phrase match and slightly more restrictive than broad match modifier was. The broad match guide covers what became of those keywords.

Advice written before those dates describes a match type as it then was. Read any rule about phrase match against its date.

Every match type also matches close variants. Google defines them as searches that are similar, but not identical, to the keyword. It says all keyword match types are eligible to match them by default, and that there’s no way to opt out. For a phrase match keyword its page lists six kinds, each with an example:

The first three keep the keyword’s words: respelled, reordered, or with a word like for dropped. The last three can lose one. vr is implied, swimming stands in for bathing, and free copyright images says royalty free another way. A search of those kinds can be the customer you wrote the keyword for, under a word you didn’t think of. It can also be somebody else.

Google’s page says the first kind applies in all languages, and the other five in a list of languages that includes English.

Exact match is the narrowest of the three, and the one you’d move a keyword to if phrase match reached too far, so it helps to know what it keeps. Google’s definition: ads may show on searches that have the same meaning or the same intent as the keyword. Its example is [shoes for men], which may show on shoes men, men shoes, men shoe and shoes for a man, and won’t show on mens tennis shoes or shoes for boys.

Its close variants are the same six kinds. In Google’s examples, [daydream vr headset] may show on daydream headset, [bathing suits] on swimming suits, and [images royalty free] on free copyright images. An exact match keyword isn’t held to its words either.

What exact match leaves out is the longer search. Google’s example is the exact match keyword men’s running shoes: it can show on running shoes for men, and won’t show on best running shoes for men, because best isn’t part of the keyword or a close variation of it. That is the line between the two match types. A phrase match keyword’s search can add to the keyword’s meaning. An exact match keyword’s search has to mean the same thing.

Google Ads tells you how each search matched. The search terms report lists the searches that resulted in your ad being shown, and its Match type column says, in Google’s words, how closely each search term is related to the keyword in your account. Google’s own example uses the keyword purple flowers, as an exact match keyword in one ad group and a phrase match keyword in another:

For a phrase match keyword, the column has four answers:

• Exact match. The search is the keyword, word for word.
• Phrase match. The search contains the keyword.
• Phrase match (close variant). The search doesn’t contain the keyword as you wrote it. Google matched it as a close variant, with what its page calls the same meaning and intent.
• Exact match (close variant). Google’s table shows this label on an exact match keyword’s search, and has no row for it on a phrase match keyword. Its rule covers the case: a keyword of a broader match type can still match a search in a narrower way. So on a phrase match keyword’s row it marks a search that is a close variant of the keyword as exact match reads it: one that means the keyword and no more.

The column describes the search, not the keyword’s own setting. Three more things can appear in it. A broad match keyword’s searches carry the same labels, with Broad match for a search that is a variation of the keyword. A search matched by a Dynamic Search Ad or a Shopping target shows no keyword and reads Exact. And a campaign with Google’s AI Max can show AI Max, which the broad match guide covers.

The report gives one search a row, so it takes a sort to see one keyword’s searches together.

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Insights and reports › Search terms and set the date range to the last 30 days.
2. 02Select the columns icon, then Attributes, check the box beside Keyword and select Apply. The column doesn’t show by default, and it names the keyword that matched each search. The same button adds Match type if your table doesn’t have it.
3. 03Click the Keyword column’s header to sort the table by it, so each keyword’s searches sit together. For one keyword alone, Google’s page on negative keyword ideas gives another way in: check the box next to the keyword in your Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords table, then select Search terms in the menu that appears above the table.
4. 04Take one phrase match keyword and read down the Match type of its searches. Count the rows that say Exact match or Phrase match: those matched the keyword as you wrote it.
5. 05Where none does, read the searches for the keyword’s words. A misspelling, a plural or the words in another order is still the keyword. A search missing one of its words isn’t.
6. 06Then read what the searches ask for. The label says how Google matched a search. Whether it’s a search for what you sell is yours to say.

Three of the eight are marked Exact match (close variant): modern couch, contemporary couch and contemporary couches are a modern sofa in other words. The other five are marked Phrase match (close variant): each holds that meaning inside a longer search. Three of those are still sofas: a sectional, a loveseat, a couch for a living room. Two aren’t. modern couch covers is someone who already owns a couch, and modern living room furniture is someone furnishing a room.

None of this is Google matching wrongly. It is phrase match doing what its definition says. What the table shows is who the keyword reaches: people who say couch, customers Cedar & Pine wants, and two kinds of search it may not, for $17.60 and 11 clicks so far. That is too little to judge any one search by its conversions, and enough to read them.

Two of the eight took no click. The report lists the searches that resulted in your ad being shown, so they’re in it all the same. It isn’t every search, though: Google lists the search terms a significant number of people used, and omits those without enough query activity to keep with its standards on data privacy. So none means none of the searches Google reports.

How many searches make none worth noticing? With two or three, it says nothing. Suppose only half of what a keyword showed on were its own words: five searches in a row without them would then happen about 3% of the time, and four about 6%. So five is a fair place to start, and this keyword has eight.

Often, nothing. A keyword whose searches are all close variants is reaching people who describe what you sell in their own words, and Google’s tips for a keyword list say you don’t have to add every variant of every keyword, since all match types capture closely related variations. Where some of the searches aren’t for what you sell, Google’s page on the report names two things to do: add the search as a negative keyword, or edit the keyword’s match type.

• Add the search as a negative keyword. In the report, check the box next to the search and select Add as negative keyword, choose Ad group or Campaign, and select Save. Added this way it’s an exact match negative by default. A negative keyword doesn’t match close variants: it accounts for casing and misspellings, and you add singular or plural forms and synonyms yourself. The negative keywords guide has how each negative match type matches.
• Narrow the keyword to exact match. An exact match keyword keeps the searches that mean the keyword and stops the longer ones. Going by the report’s labels, that keeps the rows marked Exact match (close variant) and stops the rows marked Phrase match (close variant). No Google page read for this guide promises it row by row, so read the exact match keyword’s own searches once it has some.

Google’s page on editing keywords says that changing a keyword’s match type removes the original keyword and creates a new one. Adding the exact match keyword and pausing the phrase match one does the same, and keeps the phrase match keyword to turn back on:

1. 01Go to Campaigns › Audiences, keywords, and content › Search keywords and select the plus button.
2. 02Choose the ad group the phrase match keyword is in, type the keyword in square brackets, as in [modern sofa], and select Save.
3. 03Check the box next to the phrase match keyword, open the Edit drop-down, and pause it.

Which negative to add is the last choice. Here are three for modern couch covers, one of each match type:

modern couch cover still shows under all three, since a negative keyword doesn’t match the singular of its words, and modern sofa covers under the first two.

The last row is the mistake to check for before you save a negative wider than exact match: covers on broad match also blocks one of the ad group’s own keywords, "sofa with removable covers". Google’s page says to make sure a negative’s match type doesn’t prevent your ads from showing to people searching for your keywords, and the ad preview tool guide traces one by hand. A search worth keeping can have a keyword of its own, which the find keywords guide covers.

Every day Goldbeater reads the searches Google reports for each enabled phrase match and exact match keyword in your Search campaigns over the last 30 days, clicked or not, with how Google matched each one. Where an account has more than 10,000 such rows, it reads the newest ad groups first. It raises a keyword where none of those searches is the keyword’s own, by two readings that both have to say so:

• Google’s. No search is marked Exact match or Phrase match. Every one is a close variant.
• The words’. No search has every word of the keyword. Goldbeater reads this generously: a plural, a stemming such as license and licensing, an abbreviation, a near spelling, words run together or apart, another order, and function words like for all count as the keyword’s own. So does a search in a script other than the Latin one, which it doesn’t read.

It raises a keyword from five reported searches, by the sum above, and never where one of them converted: a keyword that converts is judged by what it buys, which the broad match guide and the wasted search terms guide cover. A search that one of your negative keywords now blocks isn’t counted, and neither is one Google’s AI Max matched.

The finding is always an early read. It is rated Early, carries no figure, and is listed after every other finding, since nothing has been lost yet. The guide to how long Google Ads takes says what an early read is.

That is the keyword worked above: the finding’s table is the sample’s eight rows, and its figures are their totals. Its advice opens by saying there may be nothing to change. It offers exact match without recommending it, so nothing is drafted until you pick it, and only where the labels say exact match should stop some of the searches: here, five. Three cases read differently:

• Every search marked Exact match (close variant), or the keyword already on exact match. Exact match wouldn’t stop those searches, so no change is offered and the advice is negative keywords alone.
• The exact match keyword already in the campaign. The change offered is pausing the phrase match one.
• A search that has cost $20 or more and converted nothing. It’s raised on its own, as a wasted search term with an exact match negative as its fix. This finding drafts no negative.

The keyword sits in the catch-all ad group the keywords per ad group guide counts, and the audit checklist has this line with where to find it in Google Ads.

What is phrase match in Google Ads?

A keyword match type, chosen by typing the keyword in quotation marks. Google shows your ads on searches that include the meaning of the keyword: the meaning can be implied, and the search can be a more specific form of it. It reaches more searches than exact match and fewer than broad match.

Can you give me an example of a phrase match keyword?

Google’s own is the phrase match keyword "tennis shoes". Its ads may show on shoes for tennis, buy tennis shoes on sale, red tennis shoes and comfortable tennis sneakers, and won’t show on tennis store or shop for sneakers.

Which is better, phrase match or exact match?

Neither on its own. Google says exact match gives you the most steering over who views your ad and reaches the fewest searches, and that phrase match reaches more: a phrase match keyword’s search can be a more specific form of its meaning. Google’s advice for a keyword list is to start with exact match, then add phrase and broad match for the keywords that perform well.

What is broad match vs phrase match?

A phrase match keyword shows your ads on searches that include its meaning. A broad match keyword shows them on searches related to it, which can include searches that don’t contain its direct meaning, and it matches everything the same keyword would in phrase match. A keyword typed with no quotation marks or brackets is broad match.

What does Exact match (close variant) mean in the search terms report?

That the search isn’t your keyword word for word, and Google matched it as a close variant of the keyword: a misspelling or a plural, reordered words, an implied word, a synonym, or the same intent. Phrase match (close variant) says the same of a search that holds the keyword’s meaning with more around it.

How do I stop an exact match close variant I don’t want?

With a negative keyword for that search. Google says every match type is eligible to match close variants and there’s no way to opt out. A negative keyword accounts for casing and misspellings, and doesn’t match close variants, so add the plural and each synonym you want kept out as well.

Does word order still matter in phrase match?

Where it changes the meaning. Google’s example is the keyword "moving services NYC to Boston", which doesn’t show for people looking to move from Boston to New York City. Reordered words with the same meaning are a close variant: Google’s example is "red shoes" showing on running shoes red.