Google Ads Keyword Planner shows the most relevant keyword ideas first: since a July 2019 update, ideas are ranked by how closely Google judges them to match your seed keywords, not by search volume, and you can narrow them further by your website and by brand. Today that ranking works alongside the Refine keywords panel, filters and ad group grouping. Used together, they turn thousands of loose suggestions into a short, relevant keyword set.
This guide covers relevance, grouping and filtering. For reading the volume ranges, competition and bid columns, and for exporting, see our companion piece on the updated Keyword Planner. This one picks up where that leaves off.
What “show the most relevant” actually changed
The headline this page once carried traces back to a Google Ads announcement dated July 29, 2019: Keyword Planner would now show “the most relevant keyword ideas based on your seed keyword.” Google’s example was a seed of boots returning ideas like womens boots, work boots and cowboy boots. The same update added two controls: a filter to keep only ideas closely related to your business based on your website, and an option to exclude ideas that contain brand terms. It launched in English first, with other languages following later that year, according to Google’s announcement.
The interface has been reworked several times since, so those controls look different now. The principle held: the list is ranked for relevance to your inputs, and you are expected to prune it.
How relevance ordering works today
Open the tool from Tools, then Planning, then Keyword planner, and choose Discover new keywords. The results table is sorted by the Keyword (by relevance) column by default. Google does not publish the ranking model, so read it as closeness to your seeds, not as commercial value. Sorting by volume or bid replaces that order, which is handy for triage but buries the ideas Google considers closest to what you asked for.
Your seeds define what relevant means
With Start with keywords, you enter words related to your products or services, separated by commas. Relevance anchors on those seeds, so three to five tightly themed seeds usually beat one broad word. A seed like “running shoes” invites everything from marathon training to shoe brands; “trail running shoes” and “waterproof trail shoes” tell the planner what you actually sell.
With Start with a website, Google reads the content of a site or a single page and suggests keywords related to it. Google notes that the text of hyperlinks is not used, so a thin page produces thin ideas. It also notes that entering a keyword and a URL together can return more ideas than a URL alone, and in practice the combination keeps suggestions anchored to your business.
Targeting changes the list, not just the numbers
Location, language and network (Google alone, or Google and search partners) change which ideas appear at all, not only their volumes. Set them for the market you actually serve before you judge relevance. A list generated for all countries in all languages will look noisy no matter how good your seeds are.
Refine keywords: grouping by brand and theme
The Refine keywords panel beside the results groups ideas by themes, brands and categories, each with checkboxes. Google’s own example: researching red running shoes, you uncheck the other colors so the list keeps only red. One grouping splits ideas into brand and nonbrand buckets, the successor to the 2019 brand exclusion. Unchecking brands removes navigational searches for other companies, which rarely convert for you and inflate volume totals.
Work through the themed groups the same way. Each unchecked attribute removes every idea tagged with it, so a few clicks can strip out whole clusters of irrelevant terms. Google’s help page on refining new keywords covers the other narrowing options.
The same grouping through the API
If you pull ideas programmatically, the Google Ads API exposes the same grouping. Add the KEYWORD_CONCEPT annotation to a GenerateKeywordIdeas request and each idea comes back with concepts whose group type is BRAND, OTHER_BRANDS or NON_BRAND. This example uses the official Python client with API version v25 and skips branded ideas; Google’s keyword ideas guide covers authentication.
# pip install google-ads
from google.ads.googleads.client import GoogleAdsClient
client = GoogleAdsClient.load_from_storage(version="v25") # reads google-ads.yaml
service = client.get_service("KeywordPlanIdeaService")
ga = client.get_service("GoogleAdsService")
request = client.get_type("GenerateKeywordIdeasRequest")
request.customer_id = "1234567890"
request.language = ga.language_constant_path("1000") # English
request.geo_target_constants.append(ga.geo_target_constant_path("2840")) # United States
request.keyword_plan_network = client.enums.KeywordPlanNetworkEnum.GOOGLE_SEARCH
request.keyword_seed.keywords.extend(["trail running shoes", "waterproof trail shoes"])
request.keyword_annotation.append(
client.enums.KeywordPlanKeywordAnnotationEnum.KEYWORD_CONCEPT)
for idea in service.generate_keyword_ideas(request=request):
types = {c.concept_group.type_.name for c in idea.keyword_annotations.concepts}
if types & {"BRAND", "OTHER_BRANDS"}:
continue # skip branded ideas
print(idea.text, idea.keyword_idea_metrics.avg_monthly_searches)Each result also carries a close_variants list: the requested variants whose statistics Google combined into that idea. It is the programmatic view of the merging that makes two different looking keywords report identical volume in the interface.
Filters that sharpen relevance
Refinements remove themes. Filters remove individual ideas by rule. Combine them and the relevance sort starts to mean something.
| Control | Where it lives | What it does for relevance |
|---|---|---|
| Keyword text | Add filter | Keeps or drops ideas containing a word, such as “free” or “jobs” |
| Exclude keywords in my account | Add filter | Hides terms you already bid on, leaving only new territory |
| Exclude adult ideas | Add filter | Removes adult themed suggestions |
| Avg. monthly searches | Add filter | Cuts ideas outside a volume band you care about |
| Competition and top of page bid | Add filter | Separates commercial terms from purely informational ones |
| Organic and ad impression share | Add filter | Shows where you already have visibility |
| Refine keywords | Side panel | Removes whole brands or themes at once |
| Broaden your search | Above the results | Adds related terms, so it widens rather than narrows |
| Location, language, network | Top of the page | Changes which ideas appear at all |
Grouping ideas into ad groups
Relevance matters most at the ad group level, because a tight ad group is what lets your ad text match the search. Keyword Planner can do the first pass. From Discover new keywords, click Download keyword ideas and choose Preview keyword ideas in ad groups (this needs at least 25 ideas), then Preview keywords and Review keywords. Suggestions arrive organized by campaign and ad group, each with a recommended match type based on the keywords already in that ad group. Check the ones you want and click Add to ad group.
For a saved plan, open it and choose Organize keywords from the left menu. By default Google uses your top performing campaigns; uncheck that option to pick the campaigns yourself. Keywords marked In plan stay inactive until you implement the plan. The API equivalent is GenerateAdGroupThemes, which takes keywords and ad groups and returns a suggested ad group and match type for each keyword.
A relevance first workflow
- Set location, language and network for the market you serve.
- Enter three to five tightly themed seeds plus your most relevant landing page URL.
- Keep the default relevance sort and skim the top of the list to confirm the seeds worked.
- In Refine keywords, uncheck brand groups and off topic themes.
- Add filters: exclude keywords already in your account and words that signal the wrong intent.
- If the list is thin, use Broaden your search, then prune again.
- Group the survivors into ad groups, add them to a plan and review the forecast.
Once pages go live, check which queries actually bring visitors. Our guide to finding search queries in Google Analytics shows where that data lives, and it is the best test of whether the planner’s idea of relevant matched your customers’ idea.
Troubleshooting
The list is full of other companies’ brand names. Open Refine keywords and uncheck the brand groups. Add a keyword text filter for any brand that slips through.
A website seed returns generic ideas. Google reads page content, not link text, so a page that is mostly navigation gives it little to work with. Point it at a content rich page and add two or three seed keywords.
Preview keyword ideas in ad groups is unavailable. The option needs at least 25 keyword ideas. Loosen filters or add seeds, then try again.
Two of your keywords collapsed into one row. Keyword Planner merges close variants. The API documentation gives the example of “car” and “cars” returning a single result. Treat them as one target.
Frequently asked questions
Does Keyword Planner sort ideas by relevance?
Yes. In Discover new keywords, results are ordered by the Keyword (by relevance) column by default, reflecting how closely each idea matches your seed keywords or website. Sorting by another column, such as average monthly searches or top of page bid, reorders the list by that metric instead, so relevance is no longer visible.
How does Google decide which keyword ideas are relevant?
Google does not publish the model. What you control is the input: the seed keywords, the website or page you supply, and your location, language and network settings. Refine keywords then exposes how Google has grouped the ideas by brand and theme, which is the clearest window into its logic.
Can I remove brand keywords from the results?
Yes. The Refine keywords panel includes a grouping that separates brand from nonbrand ideas, and unchecking brands removes them from the list. Through the Google Ads API, request the KEYWORD_CONCEPT annotation and skip ideas whose concept group type is BRAND or OTHER_BRANDS, as in the example above.
Is the most relevant keyword always the best one to target?
No. Relevance only measures closeness to your inputs. A highly relevant idea can have negligible volume, informational intent or a bid range your budget cannot support. Use relevance to build the shortlist, then judge each keyword on intent, volume and cost before it goes into a campaign or a content plan.
The bottom line
Keyword Planner has shown the most relevant ideas first since 2019, but relevance to your seeds is only the starting point. The real work is pruning: tight seeds and a real URL, brand and theme refinements, rule based filters, and ad group grouping before any forecast.
The same list serves organic work too, once you pair it with pages built around each group; our guide to optimizing website content for search engines covers that side. For deeper reading on the paid side, see our roundup of the best Google Ads books.
