Google has back peddled on it’s wide ranging Broadmatch policy and increased negative keyword limit from 100 to 10,000. Under the thinly disguised cover of “AI Advancement“, it was just two years ago that advertisers were forced into a wide ranging requirements related to defaulting them into BroadMatch. Advertisers quickly realized they had to load up on negative keywords in their campaigns or watch their monthly budget drained by irrelevant searches.
Rarely does user feedback move Google to action. Time-n-time again, Google has steadfastly dug it’s heals in (like ya do when you have a monopoly) and refused to give users and clients what they want. In recent history, we have seen the massive blowback on AI Serps, Amp Pages, third party cookies. and it’s recent decisions to end support for black history and womans history months. So it is with dismay we report that Google has decided to throw it’s captive advertisers a bone.
If you recall, it was just a short while ago when Google decided that mother knows best, and automatically opted all advertisers into the “broadmatch” required horror show. To recap:
2021 -> Modified Broad Match (Phrase matching begins being pushed)
2021 -> Google ratches up BroadMatch and increases “required” rates and then had to reclarify the clarification.
2022 -> Google introduces BroadMatch + Smart Bidding.
2023 -> Google defaults to BroadMatch as major “synonym” default with negative Keywords limited to 100. These used client landing pages and user behavior to opt clients into a forced broadmatch environment. Stories and whispers abounded about advertisers budgets (and credit cards) being drained overnight faster than you can say Performance Max. These changes seemed to hit smaller advertisers the hardest with larger advertisers being able to absorb the hit – and actually use it effectively.
2024 -> In July, Google Ads changed broad match to be the default match type for all campaigns.
Meanwhile, PMax hatred and backlash has been very loud:
- PMax has ruined our Google advertising
- Performance Max Destroyed Our Google Shopping
- Performance Max sucks.
- 7 Reasons Not to Use Performance Max in Google Adwords
- Does anyone still use Performance Max?
It is clear Google doesn’t want too much attention on this – since that would point out all the things we just pointed out – we’d liked to have seen this on an Google official property, but we’ll have to link to Xitter for the info:
We recently announced the ability to add up to 100 negative keywords to your PMax campaigns is rolling out.
And, we heard your feedback loud and clear that while negative keywords are welcomed, the cap of 100 felt too restrictive.
➡️ As a result, we’re raising the threshold…
— AdsLiaison (@adsliaison) March 11, 2025
As the CEO and founder of Pubcon Inc., Brett Tabke has been instrumental in shaping the landscape of online marketing and search engine optimization. His journey in the computer industry has spanned over three decades and has made him a pioneering force behind digital evolution. Full Bio
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