Does Exact Still Mean Exact?

Google have changed the way Exact match and Phrase match keyword work.

Previously, Exact match would be exact, Phrase match would allow for keywords added before and after as long as the keyword being bid on was present.

Google have now expanded both Exact and Phrase match to include very close variants :

Misspellings
Singular and plural variations
Acronyms (should be interesting)
Stemmings (…ing)
Abbreviations
Accents

This is from google’s page on this topic here

This could lead to some interesting variations on search terms like “Dick’s Hardware”, “BJ’s cafe”, and “Seaman’s furniture” etc. or anything that can have more than one interpretation.

Google are marketing this as an improvement for advertisers and it may help those with little or no time to keyword mine close variations for exact keywords.  Others may see this as another way for Google to spend your advertising budget and increase revenues further.

As with the majority of Google’s rollouts, you can switch it off for now at campaign level. But it won’t be long before it will be standard in all campaigns. I recommend experimenting to those who have the time to see if this option works better for you. I would just keep a look out for falling CTR as you gain greater impression.

Use the search query report to check the variations you are showing for and negative inappropriate keywords. If you have never used this report before and have very few negatives in your account brace yourself for one or two surprises the first time you run this.

All in all, this could be good for some and not for others, testing is always the order of the day.