An interesting change to AdWords match types was announced this week. Google is essentially scrapping phrase and exact match. I suggest a name change. How about:
- “mostly exact” or “mostly phrase”
- “sort-of exact” or “sort-of phrase”
- “pretty-darn-close to exact” or “so very-very close to phrase”
Here’s the deal. In May 2012, phrase and exact match as we’ve known them will morph into a broad match modifier hybrid. Says the AdWords blog: “phrase and exact match keywords will match close variants, including misspellings, singular/plural forms, stemmings, accents and abbreviations.”
So, if your keyword is [bee pith helmet] or “bee pith helmet” ads could trigger on queries like:
- bee pith helmets
- bees pith helmet
- bee pit hlmets
Close enough, right?
Google says we’ll have the option to stay with the old version of match types, if preferred. To do that, go to campaign settings, advanced settings, and look for “Keyword Matching Option”:
What do you think about this change? I am pretty relaxed about these things, but I am curious how this will impact Quality Score.
Stasia
