Google's exact match keyword targeting used to mean one thing: the keyword had to match exactly whatever query the searcher used. Then close variants came into the mix, and that definition has steadily morphed over the past few years. First, the inclusion of plurals, misspellings and other similar variants came in 2014, and then, in 2017, different word order and function words took hold. Now phase three is here. On Thursday, Google announced another change to what are considered close variants of an exact match keyword to include variations that share the same meaning as the keyword, including implied words and paraphrases.