For the most part, the answer is no, but how AdWords defines keywords is a bit more complex than that. There are a lot of questions surrounding punctuation for keywords in AdWords, and there’s merit in asking them.
This post focuses on punctuation in keywords, not ads or naming groups and campaigns.
Most symbol characters are not accepted by the AdWords platform in keywords. You’ll receive an error message if you try to add keywords containing the following symbols to your campaigns:
! = ? @ % ^ *; ~ `, (){} <> |
Periods (.) and dashes (-) do not register in the AdWords keyword field in any meaningful way. AdWords will show them back to you and preserve where they exist, but will functionally ignore them. No error will be produced if you add these two symbol characters, but the punctuation has no effect on advertising. The platform will act as if you typed a space instead of a period or hyphen. As an example, AdWords will treat the following keywords as identical:
The AdWords system recognizes two kinds of symbols in keywords: ampersands and accent marks. When a keyword contains one of these characters, the keyword is considered a distinct keyword different from a keyword that does not use the symbol. The following terms would be treated as different keywords by the AdWords platform:
Brackets and quotation marks have unique applications in AdWords. They define match types. Brackets are used around a keyword to note that the match type is exact match, and quotation marks are used to note that the match type of a keyword in AdWords is phrase match.
In the AdWords platform, capitalization does not matter when entering keywords. Again, we are discussing keywords in AdWords. Capitalization in the ads that appear will yield varying results and should be split-tested. However, capitalization of keywords will not affect performance, although capitalization choices will be maintained. As an example, AdWords will treat the following keywords as identical:
Spaces do matter. Multi-word keywords are common, and the spaces used to note where one word begins and one word ends are important signposts for the AdWords system. Also note that domains are often typed directly into search engines and do not use spaces. As examples, AdWords will treat the following keywords as distinct:
Remember a hyphen is treated as a space, so while a hyphen itself may not matter, the space it takes up does matter.
If you’re interested in learning more about what Rocket Clicks can do for your pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, website design and development, or law firm marketing, please check out our PPC services and SEO services or schedule a quick audit today.
In this Weekly Update, Facebook says click-bait links will lose effectiveness, Amazon’s plan to take on Google, and more.
Pinterest & SEO for Service-based Companies Companies that sell products have all the luck, don’t they? Even on social media, it’s easier to advertise a
In this Weekly Update, Bing makes creating sitemaps easier, Google Shopping is better for ads than Amazon Products, a Wisconsin court has dismissed a lawsuit over bidding on competitors’ brand terms, and more.
