Google is making some changes to its match types again, this time phrase match will expand to cover additional broad match modifier traffic. However, Google said this will continue "to respect word order when it's important to the meaning." This change will start rolling out over the next two weeks.
Google explained "With these improvements, you can reach the searches you want just by using phrase match—without worrying about the searches you don’t want. Let’s say you’re a moving company that wants to reach people interested in moving out of New York City. With the updated phrase match, you can reach people looking to move from NYC to Boston, for example, without showing up for people looking to move from Boston to NYC."
Here is how it visually looks (click to enlarge):
Here are some examples Google provided:
I asked the PPC community about their early reactions to this and it is somewhat mixed but still an overall negative to having less control. Google has historically made changes to match types where they would expand the keyword set above and beyond what advertisers wanted. Here is some history on that:
- 2019 : Google Ads Expands Broad & Phrase Match To Include Keyword Close Variants
- 2018 : Google Ads Expands Exact Match To Include Same Meaning Of Words
- 2017 : Google AdWords Upsets Advertisers By Expanding Meaning Of Close Variants
- 2014 : Google AdWords Exact Match Now Matches On All Plurals, Misspellings, Etc.
Here is some of the reaction from the industry:
I mean, it makes sense as match types have been fundamentally broken since close variants & expansion.
— Greg Finn (@gregfinn) February 4, 2021
If I were GOOG I would still rather fix match types and the horrific close variant matching.
They had moat that no other platform could compete with and are sucking it dry.
“some” conversations. 🙄
— Kirk Williams 💬 (@PPCKirk) February 4, 2021
IMO the answer lies in continuing to negative to whatever data we have, and bidding down on non-exact match types. All we can really do is manage to KPI's. Other channels aren't going to replace this one easily.
— Andrew Goodman (@andrew_goodman) February 4, 2021
Not surprising but still outraging. In combination with the restricted search term reports, it really has a negative impact on my ability to fully optimize.
— FozzieBaloo (@BalooFozzie) February 4, 2021
With some people reporting less and less visibility of terms anyway recently, this change seems to have come at the perfect time...for Google. #ppcchat
— Azeem (@AzeemDigital) February 4, 2021
Honestly I’m not convinced this will negatively impact things this much (that’s not an argument for or against the concept of close variants, BTW), since July 2019 basically saw BMM and P Match behave the same way with Close Variants: https://t.co/pAF5cSSoyZ
— Kirk Williams 💬 (@PPCKirk) February 4, 2021
Sure, I’m not saying exact match close variants are a mess, just that BMM and P (not your example) are basically the same thing now. 🤷🏻♂️ I could be wrong, and I don’t know if optimistic is the right word… maybe more... resigned? over it? 😆
— Kirk Williams 💬 (@PPCKirk) February 4, 2021
Yeah, word order is a fair point! Might see it wreak havoc in something like specific brand terms where word order is important.
— Kirk Williams 💬 (@PPCKirk) February 4, 2021
Personally not a fan mainly because I'm utilizing them extensively today. I think that BMM gives broader reach with more control than phrase match, and it means that I'm going to spend a lot of time restructuring due to this announcement.
— Christi Olson (@ChristiJOlson) February 4, 2021
I also recommend you read the responses to Google posting about this on Twitter - click over and read the responses.
— Josh Yates (@Jates) February 4, 2021
Agree, not surprising. With word order treated the same “when deemed important” I don’t see it making a big impact one way or the other given the already existing overlap between the two.
— Ginny Marvin (@GinnyMarvin) February 4, 2021
It is the definitely the fumes. I ranted on this earlier to @bgtheory post. BMM was always bad. It crapped up every KW report since it was launced. Google ignored (+) terms whenever felt like it. RIP, BMM. You made the world a less better place. You won't be missed.
— Matt Van Wagner (@mvanwagner) February 4, 2021
And that’s emphasized in this announcement. Looking at yesterday’s examples of what BMM WON’T match to, expect a push to broad. Semantic matching isn’t perfect + BM can go off rails w/out good guards. So seems longer term impact of this will depend how well “new” BM works. 2/2
— Ginny Marvin (@GinnyMarvin) February 5, 2021
A WebmasterWorld thread is not too optimistic about these changes, here are some quotes:
Google is going to make Phrase match worse for most of us and of course spin it like we are getting a new feature. Good for shareholders, bad for advertisers.You may want to audit your accounts and keep an even more watchful eye on your search queries and negative list.
When they combine them, and they work the same, the new functionality is not Phrase or Mod Broad, it's in between, it's actually closer to BMM. It's confusing that they will call it Phrase Match still.I suggest Phrase + Broad = Phr + oad = Phroad. Oops, wait... :-)
Just got this email. Really what this means is Google can just leach more money from your account whenever they feel like it. You could watch your negative list, but from my experience Google can attach the most absurd and irrelevant keywords to any broad match keyword, so you are infinitely adding negative keywords, and they are infinitely making money from irrelevant searches.
At some point in the future this house of cards will come tumbling down. My hope is for contagion of the Australian affair regarding search. Google will be hurting at the moment, even with the changes to GA4 they are basically saying "we're going to guess that our campaigns are delivering value and you, Digital Agencies, need to go and sell that to your clients".
Google added a lot more detail on what is changing in this help document, so it is a must read for anyone using Google Ads.
Forum discussion at Twitter & WebmasterWorld.
