Close variant matching extended to phrase and exact match keywords, with a campaign-level opt-out

Phrase and exact match keywords were set to begin matching misspellings, singular and plural forms, stemmings, abbreviations and accented variants, as broad match modifier already did. Synonyms were not included. A keyword matching option was added to campaign settings for advertisers who wanted to keep strict matching.

Google framed the change as removing the need to add long lists of variant keywords. The rollout was scheduled for the weeks following the announcement, with the opt-out available in campaign settings under keyword matching options.