Google’s “Remove redundant keywords” recommendations have changed

What’s changed. The “Remove redundant keywords” recommendations suggest redundant keywords within the same ad groups. You may see the notification at the top right side of your ads dashboard. But starting January 19, the recommendation can include keywords across different match types.

Now, Google will start removing redundant phrase and exact match keywords in favor of broad.

Robert Brady first noticed this and posted it on Twitter.

Why Google is making the change. In their email, Google said:

Redundant keywords are equivalent to higher-performing keywords or keywords in broader match types. Removing these redundant keywords and consolidating your keywords across match types will help you manage your account more easily. It doesn’t negatively impact your performance, and still allows your ads to appear on the same searches.

Stop auto-apply. You can (and should, IMO) turn off auto-apply recommendations in both Editor and the Ads front end by clicking “disable” in your recommendations section.

Dig deeper. You can review Google’s recommendations guidelines here. If you haven’t received the email from Google, I’ll paste it below.

Improvements to ‘Remove redundant keywords’ recommendation

Dear Google Ads customer,

You’re receiving this message because you have opted into automatically applying the ‘Remove redundant keywords’ recommendation for your account(s) (xxx-xx-xxxx), and we are making some improvements to this recommendation type.

What’s changing?

Currently, the ‘Remove redundant keywords’ recommendation suggests redundant keywords within the same ad groups, destination, bidding strategy, and match type. Starting January 19, the recommendation can include keywords across different match types. To view match type reports, click ‘Segment’ on ‘Search keywords’ report, and choose ‘Search terms match type’. You can learn more about this recommendation on our Help Center.

Why are we making this update?

Redundant keywords are equivalent to higher-performing keywords or keywords in broader match types. Removing these redundant keywords and consolidating your keywords across match types will help you manage your account more easily. It doesn’t negatively impact your performance, and still allows your ads to appear on the same searches.

As an example for how this would work, if your ad group has the phrase match keyword “women’s hats” and broad match keyword ladies hats, we will recommend that you remove the phrase match keyword since the broad match keyword ladies hats covers all Searches from “women’s hats”

How can I turn off automatically applying recommendations for this type?

On Editor:

1. Navigate to the ‘Manage’ section and search for ‘Recommendations’.
2. Select ‘Auto-apply’.
3. Click the ‘Remove redundant keywords’ recommendation.
4. Click Disable.
5. Post changes.

On Google Ads front end:

You can disable automatically applied recommendations at any time from either of these tabs:

The ‘Manage’ tab

1. Uncheck the ‘Remove redundant keywords’ recommendation.
2. Click Save.

The ‘History’ tab

1. Click the ‘Remove redundant keywords’ recommendation.
2. Click Disable.

We’re here to help

If you have any questions about this upcoming change, please don’t hesitate to reach out to your account team, or contact us at any time.

Sincerely,

The Google Ads Team

Why we care. This is another attempt by Google to shift accounts to broad-match keywords only. Advertisers and brands should only make the change if they have tested and determined if broad-match keywords work best for their accounts. If you’re unsure bout broad-match, turn off auto-apply and test.