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Are search terms getting a bit weird lately in Google Ads?
Posted by on March 13, 2026 at 8:31 amNot sure if it’s just me, but lately I’ve been seeing some pretty random search terms showing up in Google Ads.
Even in campaigns using phrase and exact match, some of the queries feel way off from the actual keyword intent. It almost feels like match types have become a bit more “flexible” than they used to be.
I’ll add what seems like a clear transactional keyword, and then the search term report starts showing informational or loosely related searches that probably won’t convert.
Of course, negative keywords help clean things up. But it does feel like I’m spending more time lately filtering out irrelevant queries than before.
Are your search term reports still fairly clean, or are you also doing a lot more cleanup these days? 👀
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1 Reply
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Yeah, I’ve been seeing that too. Exact and phrase seem way looser now, so you end up spending more time adding negatives to keep things clean.
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You’re not imagining it. Match types have been getting looser for years, and Google keeps leaning harder into “intent” interpretation rather than literal keyword matching.
The practical result is exactly what you’re seeing. Exact and phrase start behaving closer to broad with guardrails, so the search term report becomes a constant cleanup exercise.
At this point negative keyword maintenance is basically part of the campaign routine. Curious if others are seeing the same drift in higher spend accounts.
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Google ads are a scam.
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Google is more loose with what they match for searches, so everyone needs to spend more time investing in the search term report and adding negative keywords to campaigns and the ad account. This has been going on the last 12 – 18 months.
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