Wednesday, May 22, 2024


Starting **June 10, 2024** , we are rolling out a permanent change that automatically pauses Google Ads keywords that haven't had any impressions during the last 13 months. The rollout is expected to be complete for all production Google Ads accounts **in August 2024** . We're implementing this change to improve Google Ads experience for advertisers, in a similar way to what we changed [earlier this year](https://developers.google.com/ads/blog/posts/2024/02/google-ads-ad-groups-start-pausing.md.txt) for ad groups with low activity.


You can unpause keywords if you still need them, or to remove them if you don't. However, we recommend that all advertisers review their keywords, and only unpause the ones they expect to get impressions in the coming weeks.


**What do I need to change?**


No code changes are necessary, but [Google Ads API](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/docs/start) developers can make changes to improve the transparency to their advertisers as to why the `ad_group_criterion.status` is set to `PAUSED`. If you keep local copies of Google Ads information in your database, you can keep them in sync by querying change history.


You can query the [change event resource](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/fields/v16/change_event) to see if the keyword status has changed with the following query for all API versions. If the `change_event.changed_fields` contains `status`, then this is a keyword that Google paused. Make sure to replace `INSERT_YYYY-MM-DD` with your own date range.

<br />

```
SELECT
change_event.new_resource,
change_event.old_resource,
change_event.changed_fields,
change_event.resource_name,
change_event.change_resource_name,
change_event.user_email
FROM change_event
WHERE
change_event.change_resource_type = 'AD_GROUP_CRITERION'
AND change_event.user_email = 'Low activity system bulk change'
AND change_event.resource_change_operation = 'UPDATE'
AND change_event.change_date_time BETWEEN ' INSERT_YYYY-MM-DD' AND ' INSERT_YYYY-MM-DD'
ORDER BY change_event.change_date_time DESC
LIMIT 50
```


An example of a change event where the keyword has been paused by Google would look similar to:

```
{
      "changeEvent": {
        "resourceName": "customers/1234567890/changeEvents/1708648783892610~5~0",
        "changeDateTime": "2024-02-22 16:39:43.89261",
        "changeResourceName": "customers/1234567890/adGroupCriteria/1234567890~0987654321",
        "changeResourceType": "AD_GROUP_CRITERION",
        "userEmail": "Low activity system bulk change",
        "oldResource": {
          "adGroupCriterion": {
            "status": "ENABLED"
          }
        },
        "newResource": {
          "adGroupCriterion": {
            "status": "PAUSED"
          }
        },
        "changedFields": "status",
        "resourceChangeOperation": "UPDATE",
      }
    }
```


You can use the resource names returned by this query to retrieve the current status of the keywords and mutate if, if needed.


Starting with v17, you can also retrieve the `ad_group_criterion.primary_status `field to see if your keywords have been paused; keywords that have this field set to `PAUSED` and for which the `ad_group_criterion.primary_status_reasons` contains `AD_GROUP_CRITERION_PAUSED_DUE_TO_LOW_ACTIVITY` are the ones that were automatically paused due to low activity. You can adjust the change history query to include these fields.


You will still be able to update your keywords and make changes while they are in a paused state.


**Where can I get support?**


If you have questions, please reach out to us on the [support form](https://developers.google.com/google-ads/api/support/contact.md.txt) or at [googleadsapi-support@google.com](mailto:googleadsapi-support@google.com).

![Portrait of the author](https://developers.google.com/static/ads/blog/images/AAcHTteMf_IXDYsJGIPAdLCefNLvUvK73hQtgnAZCJciyzpbfg=s83-c-mo.jpg) - Mattia Tommasone, Google Ads API Team


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