About keyword status

Your keyword status lets you know whether your keywords are active or not. If your keyword isn't resulting in any of your ads being shown, we'll tell you what the issue is.

This article explains how to find your keyword status, the different keyword status types, and what they mean.

Find your keyword status

Your keyword status tells you if your ads are running. To find your keyword status, use the following instructions.

Instructions

Your keyword status can be found in the "Status" column in your statistics table. Here's how to access it:

  1. Sign in to your Google Ads account.
  2. From the page menu on the left, click Keywords.
  3. Review the "Status" column. Next to each keyword, you should see your keyword's current status.

Types of keyword statuses

Below are the different status types:

Status type Examples
Not Eligible Campaign paused; Ad group removed
Eligible Keyword is eligible to show ads
Eligible (limited) Low search volume; Below first page bid estimate
Pending - Under review Keyword is under review. In some cases, the keyword can still trigger impressions while under review.

What they mean

Your keyword status tells you whether your keyword is causing ads to show to your target customers. In general, your keyword will be in one of three general states:

  • Showing ads
  • Not showing ads because you paused or removed a keyword, ad group, or campaign
  • Not showing ads because there is an issue with your account or keyword

Here are the different types of keyword statuses and what they mean:

Keyword status What it means Next Step
Not Eligible Campaign paused: keywords are inactive because you paused your campaign. If your campaign is paused, the keywords in that campaign will also stop showing ads. Find out how to resume your campaign.

Guide me in my account Guide me in my account to enable a paused campaign.
Campaign pending: keywords are inactive because your campaign is scheduled to begin on a future date and is not yet showing ads. Find out how to change your campaign's start date.
Campaign removed: keywords are inactive because you removed the campaign that contains these keywords. Find out how to re-enable your campaign.
Campaign ended: keywords are inactive because your campaign is past its scheduled end date and has become inactive. Find out how to change your campaign's end date.

Guide me in my account Guide me in my account to adjust campaign end dates.
Ad group paused: keywords are inactive because you paused your ad group. If you pause your ad group, then the keywords in that ad group will stop showing ads. Find out how to resume your ad group.
Ad group removed: keywords are inactive because you removed your ad group. If you remove your ad group, then the keywords in that ad group will stop showing ads. Learn how to re-enable your ad group.
Paused Keyword is inactive because you paused it. Pausing a keyword means that it won't show ads or accumulate new costs until restarted. Learn how to enable your keyword.
Removed Keyword is inactive because you removed it. Removing a keyword means that it won't show ads. Learn how to add keywords.

Guide me in my account Guide me in my account to add keywords.
Eligible Keyword is eligible to show ads. No action needed.
Disapproved Keyword is inactive and isn't showing ads. A disapproved keyword usually means there's an issue with one or more of our advertising policies, such as our destination or final URL policy. Hover over the status bubble for more details and review our advertising policies to see whether your keyword violates one of our policies.

Guide me in my account Guide me in my account to fix a disapproved ad.
Eligible (limited) Below first page bid estimate: keyword is active and can show ads. However, your keyword isn't currently showing ads on the first page of Google search results. Learn about getting your ad to show on the first page of Google search results.
Low search volume: keyword isn't eligible to show because it's associated with very little search traffic on our properties. This means your keyword might not to be relevant to people's searches, or maybe it's too specific or unusual. If the number of searches for these keywords increases, your keywords may be reactivated and could start triggering your ads to show again. Learn how to use Keyword Planner to get keyword ideas and traffic estimates.
Rarely shown due to low quality score: keyword isn't eligible to show ads due to a low Quality Score You should consider removing this keyword and adding a more relevant keyword to your account. Other factors, like your landing page, could also affect your Quality Score. Learn more about Quality Score.
Few page matches: the keyword is temporarily suspended because it matches very few pages, indicating that the phrase isn't common in Display Network content. Consider adding a more relevant keyword to your account.

Was this helpful?

How can we improve it?