Keyword match type tool

Paste a keyword list and this tool returns it in all three Google Ads formats: plain text for broad match, quotation marks for phrase match and square brackets for exact match. It also formats your negative keywords and warns you when one of them would stop a keyword you are paying for from ever showing. Everything runs in your browser, so nothing you paste is sent to me or stored.

How to use it

1. Paste your keywords into the first box, one per line. A list exported from Keyword Planner or copied out of an old account is fine: the tool strips existing quotation marks, square brackets and the plus signs left over from modified broad match, and removes duplicates.
2. Add any negatives in the second box and choose whether they should go in as phrase or exact.
3. Leave lower case ticked unless you have a reason not to. Google Ads keywords are not case-sensitive, so lower case simply makes duplicates easier to spot.
4. Press the button, read the warnings, then copy each column into the matching ad group or into a shared negative list in Google Ads Editor.

What each format does in Google Ads now

Match types have loosened a great deal over the past few years, and much of the advice still circulating describes how they used to behave.

Broad match

Broad match lets Google show your ad for searches it judges to be related in meaning, even when they share none of your words. It uses signals such as your landing page and the other keywords in the ad group to decide. It works best alongside Smart Bidding and solid conversion tracking; on a small budget with manual bids it tends to spend on searches you would never have chosen.

Phrase match

Phrase match shows your ad when the search includes the meaning of your keyword, with extra words either side. Word order matters only where it changes the meaning, so “london to manchester removals” and “manchester to london removals” are treated as different searches.

Exact match

Exact match is no longer literal. It covers searches with the same meaning or intent, including plurals, misspellings and reworded versions, which Google calls close variants. It is still the tightest control you have.

Reading the warnings

Before you upload anything, the tool checks the list against four rules that cause problems in live accounts.

• Single-word keywords. On broad match, a keyword like “plumber” can match almost anything. Either drop it, move it to phrase or exact, or pair it with a strong negative list.
• Characters Google rejects. Keywords containing ! @ % or commas fail to upload, so strip them first.
• Keywords that are too long. Google accepts a maximum of 80 characters and 10 words per keyword.
• Negatives that block your own keywords. This is the one that costs money quietly. A phrase negative “cheap” blocks every keyword containing that word, including “cheap boiler repair” if you bid on it. The keyword sits in the account looking active but never serves, and unless you check its status or the conflicting negatives recommendation, it is easy to miss.

Building a negative list that is safe to use

A negative keyword follows its own matching rules, set out under negative match types. Phrase negatives block any search containing the words in that order; exact negatives block only that precise search. For a one-word negative, phrase and broad behave identically, which is why the tool offers phrase as the default.

Start with the obvious exclusions for your trade: jobs, careers, training, courses and DIY for most service businesses in the UK. Then add negatives from your own search terms report, which shows what people actually typed before clicking. Terms that should never trigger an ad in any campaign belong in account-level negative keywords rather than being copied into each campaign.

What the tool cannot tell you

It formats and checks the list you give it. It cannot see your account, so it does not know about negatives already applied at campaign or account level, keywords in other ad groups competing for the same search, or how your bidding strategy will treat each match type. It also does not judge whether a keyword is worth bidding on at all. For that, group the list by intent first with the keyword clustering tool, so each ad group holds one intent before you format it here.

Next step

If you would rather someone built the keyword structure and negative lists for you, that is part of how I set up Google search ads campaigns. To check an account you already run, work through the Google Ads account checklist, or send me your account details and I will tell you what I would fix first.