Close variants allow keywords to match to searches that are similar, but not identical to the targeted keyword, and help you connect with people who are looking for your business—despite slight variations in the way they search—reducing the need to build out exhaustive keyword lists to reach these customers.
By default, all keyword match types are eligible to match to close variants. There's no way to opt out. Learn more about keyword matching options
Exact match keywords
For exact match keywords, close variants may also include:
Close variant
Description
Available in these languages
Words with closely related syntax
This may include misspellings, singular or plural forms, stemmings (for example, floor and flooring), abbreviations, or accents.
All languages
Reordered words with the same meaning
For example, [shoes mens] and [mens shoes].
Adding or removing function words
Function words are prepositions (like in or to), conjunctions (like for or but), articles (like a or the), and other words that don’t impact the intent of a search. For example, [shoes for men] is a close variant of [men shoes] with the function word “for” removed.
Implied words
For example, if your exact match keyword is [daydream vr headset], your ads may show on searches for “daydream headset” since “vr” is implied.
Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese
Synonyms and paraphrases
For example, if your exact match keyword is [bathing suits] ads may also show on searches for “swimming suits.”
Same search intent
For example, if your exact match keyword is [images royalty free] ads may also show on searches for “free copyright images.”
Phrase match keywords
Phrase match close variants may also include:
Close variant
Description
Available in these languages
Words with closely related syntax
This may include misspellings, singular or plural forms, stemmings (for example, floor and flooring), abbreviations, or accents.
All languages
Reordered words with the same meaning
For example, the phrase keyword “red shoes” may show on searches for “running shoes red.”
Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Vietnamese
Adding or removing function words
Function words are prepositions (like “in” or “to”), conjunctions (like “and” or “but”), articles (like “a” or “the”), and other words that don’t impact the intent of a search. For example, the phrase match keyword “hats for winter” could match to searches for “winter hats on sale” with the function word “for” removed).
Implied words
For example, if your phrase match keyword is “daydream vr headset”, your ads may show on searches for “daydream headsets for sale” since “vr” is implied.
Synonyms and paraphrases
For example, if your keyword is +bathing +suits, your ads may also show on searches for “red swimming suits.”
Same search intent
For example, if your phrase match keyword is “images royalty free” ads may also show on searches for “free copyright images of baseball.”
Note:Language is determined by the language of the user’s search terms. For example, if a user searches using words that are specific to German, then the language would be detected as German, even if the user is searching in Spain.
