What are close variants in Google Ads?

For exact match keywords, close variants may include misspellings, singular or plural forms, stemmings (Google's example is floor and flooring), abbreviations or accents, in all languages. In a listed set of languages, they may also include reordered words with the same meaning, added or removed function words, implied words, synonyms and paraphrases, and searches with the same search intent. Google's example of the last is the exact match keyword images royalty free, which may show on searches for free copyright images. Google says language is determined by the language of the user's search terms.

Phrase match keywords may get the same kinds of variant. Google's example is the phrase match keyword red shoes, which may show on searches for running shoes red.

Negative keywords are the exception. Google says negative keywords don't match to close variants, so your ad might still show on searches or pages that contain close variations of your negative keyword terms. It adds that negative keywords automatically account for casing and misspellings, so you don't need to add those separately. In the search terms report, a close variant is indicated in the Match type column.

Our reading: a keyword is a meaning, not a string. The rows marked close variant in the search terms report are the quickest way to see how far that meaning reached.