Keywords Under Review: Google Ads Changes Its Keyword Trigger Policy

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Everything You Need to Know About Keywords Under Review in Less Than 50 Words

Beginning in June 2022, Google will be making significant updates to its ad policies. One of these changes will result in limitations to the serving of keywords under review. This change will likely affect your company if you incorporate Google ads into your business.

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Under the old policy, Google didn’t need to review keywords before they would be able to trigger an ad. Going forward, however, keywords will need to be reviewed. Google states that the review of keywords will take up to one business day.

Once your keyword has been reviewed, it will get labeled with one of six statuses.

The status “eligible” means that your keyword has been fully approved, and there are no restrictions on how it shows ads.

The status “eligible (limited)” means that your keyword is eligible to show ads but that there may be other external restrictions that limit its performance.

For more detailed information about quality scores and other possible reasons, your keyword may have received a review of “eligible (limited),” visit Google Ads Help.

Google will be making significant updates to its ad policies. One of these changes will result in limitations to the serving of keywords under review.

If the review of your keyword comes back with a “not eligible” status, there may be a few different reasons. If the campaign or ad group has been paused, pending, removed, or has ended, the keyword won’t be able to show its ads.

If your campaign is pending, then your keyword is not eligible because the start date hasn’t been set or is in the future. Likewise, if your campaign has ended, all associated keywords won’t be eligible as there is no active campaign to attach to.

The two statuses “paused” or “removed” mean that the keyword cannot trigger ads because you have either paused or removed it. This status differs from the “not eligible” status because it has to do with an action taken on an individual keyword and not an entire ad campaign.

The last status Google might impart on your keyword is “disapproved.” If your keyword violates Google Ads policies, a “disapproved” result will be given. In this case, your keyword won’t be able to trigger ads. For a comprehensive list of Google Ads policies, refer to this Help Center page.

Some “eligible (limited)” statuses may be because of low search traffic on Google or a low-quality score that prevents your ad from being shown as frequently.

Regarding a “not eligible” status, the keyword won’t trigger an ad if the campaign is scheduled to begin at some future point. A “not eligible” status may also be because the keyword is a part of a campaign that has been temporarily paused due to funds running out of a prepaid account.

You can also select whether or not you would like your keyword to show on error sites based on the intended URL and related content.

Source: Google Support Ads Policy

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