Use Google Ads Editor. Choose Tools, then Find duplicate keywords, pick the campaigns or ad groups to check, set your criteria and run the search. The duplicates appear in a list where you can edit or remove them.
Search criteria
- Scope: the whole account, or selected campaigns or ad groups.
- Word order: treat keywords with the same words in a different order as duplicates or not.
- Match types: include or ignore match type differences.
- Location: duplicates in the same ad group, the same campaign or anywhere in the account.
After the search, the Select duplicates by menu picks which copy to keep, by metrics such as Quality Score, CTR or impressions.
Do duplicates compete with each other?
No. Google says that when several of your keywords can match the same search, they do not compete with each other in the auction, and only one of them can trigger an ad. An exact match keyword identical to the search gets priority, then Ad Rank decides between equals.
In practice
Duplicates still split data and make reporting harder. For app and game advertisers, this matters most in Search campaigns, such as brand campaigns for web sign-ups. Clean them up before a restructure so each search term maps to one keyword.
See how we run Google for apps and games on our Google Ads agency page.
Sources checked 4 October 2026
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