Google Makes More Changes

GOOGLE CHANGES

Googles made some changes. Their phrase match will begin to incorporate behaviors of broad match modifier (BMM). With this change, both phrase and broad match modifier keywords will have the same matching behavior and may show ads on searches that include the meaning of your keyword. This also means that the new matching behavior will consider word order when relevant to the meaning. For example, the phrase match keyword “moving services NYC to Boston.” will continue to cover searches like “affordable moving services NYC to Boston.” It will also cover searches that traditionally only matched under broad match modifier, such as “NYC corporate moving services to Boston.” Phrase match won’t show ads for searches where the direction is reversed (for example, people looking to move from “Boston to New York City”).

BMM keywords

The creation of BMM keywords is no longer available, but the same matching functionality will be available through phrase match. Existing BMM keywords will continue to serve using the new behavior.

This change will become available to advertisers in the following languages first: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, and Russian. For all other Google Ads languages, the new matching behavior will roll out later this year.

Negative keywords

Keep in mind: The changes to phrase match and BMM will not impact negative keyword match types.

Below are more examples to illustrate how matching behavior will change after this update:

Broad match modifier keyword

+resume +services

+best +sneakers

+used +printers

Phrase match keyword

“holidays in Zambia”

“long sleeve dress”

“women's boots”

Queries that will no longer match after the update

what are some customer service skills to put on a resume

best prices on sneakers for toddler

companies that used daisy wheel printers

Queries that will match after the update

holiday spots in Zambia

long sleeve lace dress

new women's size 37 boot

Any Google Update tends to create excitement, interest, and, usually, confusion among search marketers and businesses. Often it will be clear that an update has taken place, as fluctuation in the SERPs is greater than usual or whole new features, like video carousels, appear and wreak havoc with the rankings. An alternative to absolute changes is to look at percentage changes in SEO Visibility. However, in some cases, smaller websites can be overly represented, as only a couple of new rankings can have a disproportionately large impact.