Member Avatar for PixelatedKarma

For all the internet marketers out there; you may want to begin formulating a new Adwords strategy for your Clients. Google Adwords is pushing a change which will spell out the end of exact match keywords. This change comes into effect sometime in September. Previously when you setup a campaign you had the ability to opt out of Close Variant keywords. This meant that you could target specific phrases "Web Design Forums", "Website Design Forums", etc. without Close Variant's interferring and subsequently displaying your ad when someone searched for "Website Design Companies" for example. For high competition niches the more specific your Ad, the more targetted your Advertising campaign, the more targetted your advertising campaign - well the higher probability your product was being seen by hot leads not just cold or luke-warm leads.

Although eliminating the option to opt out of Close Variants will broaden the audience your ads will probably reach; the downfalls are huge, for one - expect your advertising budgets to be bigger. Bigger audience, more clicks, more money. And dont forget a larger audience doesn't necessarily mean more conversions. Not to mention that now your advertising will probably end up in alot bigger playing field which also means more competition for your leads to actually find your website.

But not all is lost, for smaller/less experienced marketing agencies and DIY'ers; this change will take out some of the complexities of developing an advertising campaign. For example now you won't need 9+ variants of a keyword (for the different ways it will be searched or the various spellings and mispellings of a word).

This is an interesting change indeed, so it will be interesting to see how it plays out. If you want to read up more Search Engine Land has a few articles about it; one that explains the change fairly well is located at:
http://searchengineland.com/farewell-pure-exact-match-google-will-soon-force-campaigns-close-variants-enabled-200615

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As first called out, the “end of pure exact match” was real — Google made close‑variant matching the default for exact and phrase keywords and removed opt‑out. That change has been followed by more refinements: Google expanded what counts as a close variant (reordered words/same intent in 2017) and later folded Broad Match Modifier behavior into Phrase Match (2021). These moves mean match types today are driven by intent, not literal string matching. ()

That explains the thread’s pain points (tracking, wasted clicks, bigger budgets). Two platform realities make control harder: Google now withholds some low‑volume rows from the Search terms report for privacy (so you won’t always see every query), and negative keywords do not automatically block close variants — you must add variant forms if you want them excluded. ’s note about the UI option disappearing is consistent with these product changes. ()

Practical, short checklist to regain control (apply immediately):

  • Review Search terms regularly and add negatives. When a variant converts better, add that exact phrasing as its own keyword and set a dedicated bid and ad copy.
  • Expand negative lists with plural/singular and common misspellings because negatives don’t cover close variants automatically.
  • Segment tightly: separate campaigns/ad groups by intent (transactional vs. research) and use Smart Bidding or RLSA to bid on known converters.
  • If reporting gaps persist, use automated scripts or the Ads API to pull search_term_view and log patterns for longer windows. ()

Bottom line: the match‑type landscape changed to favor reach and intent. That increases noise for tightly budgeted advertisers (as warned), but careful use of search‑terms monitoring, negatives, explicit keyword variants, and audience/bidding signals restores much of the control.

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Member Avatar for jewelraz

Google Adwords is pushing a change which will spell out the end of exact match keywords.

Can you give me an authentic source like Google Forum or Blog?

Member Avatar for Ravi Rajput

Yes, Google adwords has given remove the option to adwords users in camapign level setting under advance setting => keyword matching options. Now you can check that this tab is not present there.

Member Avatar for mindstreak

This will definitely affect the smaller companies having little bydget to invest on google adwords.Although its not a guarantee than spending more budget with wider audience can lead to better conversions.

Member Avatar for PixelatedKarma

The biggest downfall we have seen so far is has become far more difficult to target and track campaigns. Lets say the conversion ratio is 60% higher on web design services versus website design services. We want to spend more advertising budget on what we know we is going to be more successful of the two; not dump hundreds or thousands into the close varients which may generate leads but isnt quite as successful as going to a proven niche varient. Also now that exact match is gone we can no longer track exactly what exact match advertising is driving those conversions instead we are given a vague idea by knowing its one of say 20 varients of the campaign.

In an overall online marketing campaign this is bad because we know that if one of the two varients is producing better results, historically we have always geared the on-page SEO and SMO towards that working exact match to garner better results for the Client and this has been a tried and proven method. As always we have begun to adapt but it has become a bit more difficult to be as effective as we once were. End of the day every year online becomes more and more of a precise science so when we can can accurately graph our target users with the more tools; then the better the results.

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