Too many keywords with Google Ads: is there such a thing? (+ examples)

At some point, a well-intentioned Google Ads account can start to look like my closet currently: when I “reorganized” it a week ago, I had a plan. A color-coded plan that both pleased me aesthetically and gaslit me into thinking I’m one step away from becoming an enviable lifestyle influencer. 

But, within a single laundry cycle and a couple of “totally necessary” shopping trips later, it once again became a dark abyss from which no shirt, skirt, or concept of hope could escape. 

And that’s how it all starts, right?

You have your initial batch of keywords. 

But then you start to refine your targeting, expand your ways of thinking, and try to think more outside the box with keywords.

More Google Ads keywords resembles coverage, because looks responsible and thorough. You pat yourself on the back, as you work hard, making sure no relevant search gets left behind. Then a few weeks later the ad groups are muddy, the search terms are all over the place, the ads have gotten more generic, and the reporting starts to feel like someone emptied a junk drawer into your dashboard.

And therein lies the real problem behind too many keywords with Google Ads.

🔎 Go deeper: Improve conversion tracking for lead generation campaigns

Now, I know you probably want me to show up like some wizard with hard-and-fast rules you can immediately apply to your Google ads account:

• 12 keywords are fine
• 47 is a bit reckless, cowboy, slow down
• 83 keywords?! It may be time to consult a priest… 

But that kind of clear guidance doesn’t exist: not from Google or anyone else. The only thing Google really tells us is that each ad group should have a narrow theme, and the keywords in that ad group should relate to that theme. 

Beyond that, the only thing everyone can agree on is that, once the keyword list gets broad enough that one ad group can no longer serve a coherent intent well, you’ve got a problem. 

So yes, there is absolutely such a thing as too many keywords with Google Ads.

The catch is that “too many” is usually not about platform limits. It is about structure, intent, relevance, and manageability. By the end of this article, you’ll be able to tell whether your keyword problem is actually a quantity problem, where it tends to show up first, and how to organize your account more intelligently.

What you need to know about Google Ads keyword volume

Google Ads itself allows very large account structures, which… of course it does. Google lets advertisers create up to:

• 20,000 ad groups per campaign
• 20,000 target items in each ad group

So, you definitely don’t want to look to Google to spritz you with a water bottle like you’re a cat trying to knock a vase off the counter if you try to add “too many” keywords. Think of the Google Ads platform like a canvas, rather than a strategic partner. Only you can determine the sweet-spot number of keywords you need to support relevant ads, clean reporting, and a sensible landing page experience. 

That’s why the answer to “how much is too much?” usually shows up at the ad group level first. If an ad group contains so many keywords, modifiers, or mixed intents that one ad set can no longer speak clearly to what the searcher wants, then you have too many keywords in that ad group.

If you’re just starting out, a good rule of thumb is keeping that one keyword theme narrow per ad group. And while there are always plenty of exceptions to the rule, if you start going way over 20 keywords in those ad groups, you may want to ask yourself if you’re going more “spray-and-pray” with your approach, rather than locked in on a strategic target.

Where else “too many keywords” usually becomes a problem 

After the ad group level, you want to evaluate your Google Ads account at the campaign level. Sometimes each ad group is technically fine, but there are so many marginal, low-value, or overlapping keyword groupings inside a campaign that the whole structure becomes bloated. That makes budget control harder, reporting messier, and optimization slower.

🔎 Go deeper: 3 tips for writing amazing ad copy (+ bonus tip for improving PMax ads)

Next, you want to look at an account level. 

This part can be a little tricky. 

Much like my “system” for organizing my books makes perfect sense to me, but looks like an absolute chaos parade from the outside, your Google Ads account can easily become one of those systems that only makes sense to the person who built it. 

They might leave, which creates its own complications. Or, alternatively, they don’t, but still… over time that Google Ads account starts to more closely resemble that one junk drawer in the kitchen we all have (don’t deny it, you’ve got one), rather than something that is in any way strategic. Too many campaigns, too many ad groups, too many keyword variations… you get my point.

You want to do this high-level review periodically, because sometimes you need to see if the dysfunction you’re potentially seeing in one area is a symptom of greater dysfunction that is leaking everywhere.  

Where “more relevant coverage” with more keywords goes wrong

This is where people get tripped up, because “more relevant coverage” sounds obviously good.

More coverage, more reach with (theoretically) the right people. 

How is that a bad thing, right?

To be fair, it isn’t always bad.

Still, once the keyword list gets too broad or too cluttered, a few predictable things start happening.

• Your ad relevance gets weaker because one ad has to serve too many slightly different searches.
• Your landing page experience gets blurrier because one page is now expected to satisfy too many variations of intent.
• Your reporting gets harder to interpret because winners and junk start sitting together in the same bucket.
• Your optimization gets slower because the account has more noise to sift through before any clean signal appears.

🔎 Go deeper: Landing page optimization strategies to increase conversions (a practical, data-driven guide)

And this is where we start to see at least a few hints of industry coherence around these specific points. For instance, Sierra Exclusive says that once keyword counts push beyond roughly 20 to 25 per ad group, ad relevance often weakens if those keywords no longer align to a single message or intent. 

So the downside isn’t just that sinking junk drawer-feeling of “yikes, I can’t find the batteries, but here are our passports and some old Tootsie Rolls.” The downside, however, is that the structure can directly make the account less relevant and less efficient.

What the heck does Google want?

Well, again, Google is a platform, not your strategic partner. So, Google doesn’t give us a ton of direction here. 

But they do give us a little bit:

• Pick a narrow theme for your ad groups (we talked about this)
• Use keywords inside that ad group related to that theme (this should go without saying, but just in case)
• Write ads that reflect those keywords (which relate to that narrow theme), so your ideal audiences see something they actually want to see (ye olde intent-meets-relevance)

🔎 Go deeper: How to analyze keywords for effective ad campaigns

Am I blowing your mind with those recommendations?

Of course not. 

But these are the strategic best practices we can easily lose sight of in the moment: when you need to pivot due to unexpectedly good (or bad) campaign performance, when someone has a “brilliant idea,” or when general entropy of your Google Ads account over time starts to eclipse the clear strategy you had at the start. 

Example: too many Google Ads keywords

Because I’m writing this while sitting in a horrifically uncomfortable dining room chair, we’re going. to pretend for a moment that you sell premium office chairs. (And if you do actually sell premium office chairs, please call me.)

📊 Case study: How The Foot Doc achieved lead gen goals through strategic campaign optimization

Here’s what a messy ad group might look like:

• office chair
• ergonomic chair
• best office chair
• office chair near me
• gaming chair
• desk chair for back pain
• office furniture
• executive chair
• cheap office chair
• office chair sale
• standing desk chair
• buy office chair online

Are these all relevant to what you do? Sure. 

But if you look at that ad group as a whole, it’s trying to do too much. 

It includes broad category terms, quality-focused searches, local intent, pricing intent, gaming intent, furniture-level browsing, and a back-pain use case. One ad group shouldn’t be responsible for all of that. The ads would have to get generic very quickly, and the landing page would have a hard time serving all of those searches equally well.

A cleaner structure might look more like this:

Ad group 1: ergonomic office chairs

• ergonomic office chair
• ergonomic desk chair
• best ergonomic office chair
• ergonomic chair for back pain

Ad group 2: office chair deals

• office chair sale
• cheap office chair
• buy office chair online
• office chair discount

Ad group 3: gaming chairs

• gaming chair
• best gaming chair
• gaming chair for desk

Now the ad messaging can get more specific. The landing pages can align better. The reporting becomes more readable. The intent buckets make more sense.

This is the level of organization you want. Of course, you don’t need to keep the ad groups so small. If you’re able to build an ad group that’s coherent and narrowly focused, and it also includes about 20 keywords, that works.

What about match types in Google Ads?

Ah, match types. This is another reason people wind up with bloated lists.

Sometimes advertisers pile in endless exact, phrase, and broad variants of near-identical keywords because that used to feel like thorough account building. Match type still matters, but the newer Google Ads environment has reduced the need for some of the older obsession with multiplying close variants across every possible choice. 

That does not mean match types are irrelevant. It means you should be more intentional about when keyword expansion is adding real control and when it is just giving the account more paperwork.

🔎 Go deeper: 5 key reasons to take advantage of A/B testing

The old SKAG answer isn’t the whole answer anymore

Older Google Ads advice often pushed the structure very tight, sometimes all the way to SKAGs, or single keyword ad groups. That approach had its moment. Current PPC coverage is much more mixed on it now. As a result, SKAGs are much less effective than they used to be because match types and machine learning have changed the environment. 

So if you’re wondering whether the solution to “too many keywords” is “one keyword forever,” probably not.

A tighter theme is usually the smarter goal. One keyword can work in some cases. Ten can work in some cases. Twenty can work in some cases. The question is whether the grouping still helps relevance and optimization.

How to tell if your ad group has too many keywords

Here are the signs I would watch for:

• The keywords no longer reflect one clear search intent
• The ads have gotten generic because they have to cover too much ground
• One landing page is trying to satisfy too many different searches
• Search terms within the same ad group look like they belong to different conversations
• Reporting tells you which ad group is weak, but not which intent inside it is the problem
• You keep adding variants because it feels safer, not because the structure got smarter

Remember, your Google Ads campaigns should be strategic, not something you accidentally construct into an emotional safety net over time due in-the-moment “gut feelings.”

What to do instead

A better move is to organize keywords by shared intent and message fit.

When you look at an ad group, ask:

• Could one set of ads credibly speak to all of these searches?
• Could one landing page satisfy them well?
• Do these keywords belong to the same buyer conversation?
• Will this grouping make optimization easier or muddier?

If the answers start getting fuzzy, split the group.

🔎 Go deeper: Landing page optimization strategies to increase conversions (a practical, data-driven guide)

You don’t need to create 50 tiny little ad groups for the thrill of structure. You do need enough separation that the ads, the search terms, and the landing pages still make sense together.

And that, my fine friends, is what we in the business call “discipline.”

So yes, there is such a thing as too many keywords with Google Ads

Duh. But you need to stop worrying if you’re crossing some sort of sacred number every time you want to add a keyword into the mix.

Instead, broaden your focus to whether or not your keyword list still supports relevance, clear intent targeting, and manageable optimization. Once the structure gets muddy, the account starts paying the price.

🔎 Go deeper: Improve conversion tracking for lead generation campaigns

If a keyword group can be served well by one message, one intent, and one landing page, you’re probably in decent shape. On the other hand, if the group feels like a pile of “kind of related” searches that only make sense because they live in the same spreadsheet tab, it is time to split it up.

That’s usually the next right move.