Google Broad Match Modifier Keywords Eliminated

Google is slowly phasing out broad match modifier (BMM) keywords, and they will no longer be available as of July 2021. Instead, phrase match will expand to cover BMM traffic, while continuing to respect word order when it’s important to the meaning. 

For example, “moving services San Francisco to Los Angeles” will still cover searches like “affordable moving services San Francisco to LA,” but will now also cover searches that only matched under BMM like “San Francisco corporate moving services to Los Angeles.” This change will eliminate unwanted traffic for reverse searches like those wanting to move from LA to San Francisco.

The change is a push to simplify keywords and make it easier to reach relevant keywords in Google Ads, and helps to streamline keyword management. 

Existing BMM keywords will continue to serve under the new behavior. Performance and historical data will remain, and there’s no need to migrate your keywords. However, moving forward, BMM will no longer be an option.