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Is it necessary to add the plural form of keywords into an AdWords campaign? In other words, would I need to have keywords: widget, widgets, blue widget, blue widgets, red widget, red widgets, etc?

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Short answer: you usually do not need to add plural forms today — Google Ads automatically matches singular/plural and many other “close variants,” so a keyword like blue widget will typically also match blue widgets. See Google’s definition of close variants for details. ()

A bit of history explains why this thread got confusing: until 2012 exact/phrase match did not include close variants, so people commonly added both singular and plural. Google introduced close-variant matching for exact/phrase in 2012 and then made that behaviour standard (no opt-out) in 2014 — after those changes duplicating plurals became unnecessary for most accounts. (adwords.googleblog.com)

Practical approach: keep keyword lists lean and use data to decide. Use the Search Terms report to see exactly which queries triggered your ads, then add negative keywords for unwanted variants or add an explicit plural only if it converts differently. Relying on the Search Terms report and negatives gives far more control than pre-populating every singular/plural combo. ()

Tie-back to the thread: and were on the right track about match types; and ’s point about rarely needing pluralized forms is still valid today. The optimizer that added hundreds of plural forms may have been following older best-practices or testing for performance — now the recommended workflow is: monitor Search Terms, add negatives for noise, and only create explicit duplicates when the data shows distinct intent or better ROAS. ()

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Member Avatar for BlazingWolf

I say probably not, although I do not know for sure.

I would figure google has the sense to make it a full word match. Since "widget" is contain within "widgets" it will most likely bring up a match.

Member Avatar for Dani

That is what I have always thought. However, I recently received a complimentary Google AdWords optimization, and it included singular and plural of most keywords ... which is why I'm now confused.

Member Avatar for mgru

That is what I have always thought. However, I recently received a complimentary Google AdWords optimization, and it included singular and plural of most keywords ... which is why I'm now confused.

I think it depends on what kind of match type you are using. If you are using broad match, you will recieve traffic from all plurals. However, if you are using exact, you may not. Some advertisers use this as a way to determine if there is difference in quality of traffic based on plurals or not.

mgru

Member Avatar for ArgyleSox

Hi there! New to the board!

I spent a fair bit of time doing SEO and PPC campaigns, and only on occasion have I felt the need to add pluralized forms withing my keyword baskets.

That is interesting that they've included pluralizations withing the Adwords optimization thingie the gave you- I wonder if they added it because it was an easy little "tweak" that most people don't take the time to do?

Member Avatar for Dani

They added quite a few hundred keywords, and I gave them no minimum saying "I want at least X keywords", so I can't see it being that they just wanted to pad the list. There must be some rationale behind it we're just clueless about.

Member Avatar for aniseed

They added quite a few hundred keywords, and I gave them no minimum saying "I want at least X keywords", so I can't see it being that they just wanted to pad the list. There must be some rationale behind it we're just clueless about.

You might find interesting. :)

Member Avatar for Dani

I know a lot of people like Wordtracker ... Google's keyword suggestion tool (the one built into AdWords) is all I really rely on. :)

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