Duplicate keywords in your Google Ads account can lead to internal competition (keyword cannibalization), inconsistent data, lower Quality Scores, and wasted budget.While Google Ads aims to use the keyword with the best Ad Rank for any given search query, it is best practice to maintain a clean, efficient keyword structure.

The most effective and widely used method for finding and removing duplicate keywords across your campaigns and ad groups is by using the Google Ads Editor.

Using Google Ads Editor (Recommended)

Google Ads Editor is a free, downloadable application that allows you to manage and make bulk changes to your Google Ads account offline.This tool has a built-in feature specifically for identifying and selecting duplicate keywords.

1. Download and Get Recent Changes

1. Open the Google Ads Editor application.

2. Click Get recent changes to download the latest version of your campaigns and keywords.

2. Find Duplicate Keywords

1. In the top menu, go to Tools > Find duplicate keywords.

2. A search box will appear. Select the part of your account you want to search:

• Check the box next to your Account Name to search the entire account.

• Select specific Campaigns or Ad Groups if you want to focus the search.

3. Select your criteria for the search:

• Word order: Check this box if “red shoes” and “shoes red” should be considered duplicates.

• Match types: Choose whether to find duplicates with the same match type (e.g., two identical [exact match] keywords) or all match types (e.g., a Broad Match and an Exact Match of the same term).

• Location of duplicates: Search within the same ad group, within the same campaign, or across the entire account.

4. Click Find duplicate keywords.

3. Review and Select Duplicates to Remove

1. The duplicate keywords will appear in the main data view, grouped by the identical term.

2. Click Select duplicates by… above the list. This drop-down menu is your most powerful tool. You can select duplicates to keep or remove based on performance metrics:

• Select all keywords except the one with the:

• Highest Quality Score

• Highest CTR (Click-Through Rate)

• Highest Impressions

• Lowest Max. CPC

3. Once the poor-performing or redundant keywords are selected, click the Remove button (or right-click and select Remove).

4. Post and Monitor

1. Click Post in the top right corner to upload the changes (the removal of the selected duplicate keywords) back to your Google Ads account.

2. Monitor the performance of the remaining keywords to ensure no key traffic was unintentionally removed.

Notes & Key Points

• Redundant vs. Duplicate: A true duplicate is the same keyword text and match type in the same area.A redundant keyword is one that, due to Google’s matching logic, provides no unique traffic (e.g., having both [utds optimal choice] and [utds optimal choices] the plural variant is now redundant).

• The Golden Rule: When removing duplicates, always keep the keyword with the best history (highest Quality Score, highest CTR, and strongest conversion data). This keyword is more likely to perform better in the future.

• Case Sensitivity: Keyword matching in Google Ads is not case-sensitive, so “UTDS” and “utds” are the same keyword and one is a duplicate.

• Intentional Duplicates: In rare, advanced setups (like using the same keyword in two different ad groups to target different ads/landing pages), you may intentionally keep duplicates. The best practice is to remove all but one and then use Negative Keywords to manage traffic flow between ad groups instead.

Example Scenario

Company: UTDS Optimal Choice (utds.io) – Premium business software.

Scenario: UTDS has two identical keywords in different Ad Groups:

Action:

This action eliminates internal competition, simplifies management, and focuses all performance data for that term on the single, best-performing keyword.