What do 'AI Max expanded matches' and 'landing page matches' mean in my search terms report?

Most people find these rows by pasting a line from an export into Google, something like Total: AI Max expanded matches,,,,,,usd,0,0. Google adds these rows, and they count traffic outside your keyword list. If those rows show spend, Google is buying searches you never chose, and the dashboard will call it a win.

What the two rows count

Google Ads Help defines both in About reporting in AI Max for Search campaigns. They sit at the bottom of the keywords report as two aggregate rows for AI Max performance.

• Total: AI Max expanded matches is traffic from broad match keywords AI Max created, based on the keywords you added.
• Total: AI Max landing page matches is traffic from searches that matched because of your landing pages or assets, outside your keywords.

So the first row is AI Max stretching your list. The second is AI Max reading your site and deciding what to buy without a keyword at all. In the Google Ads API the same split shows up as AI_MAX_BROAD_MATCH and AI_MAX_KEYWORDLESS.

A row of zeros needs no action. It usually means AI Max is off, search term matching is off for the ad group, the campaign is paused, or nothing matched in the date range. In the exports I’ve read, the rows appear even when AI Max matched nothing.

How it works

Where the two total rows come from

• Your keyword list AI Max builds broad versions of it. Counted in Total: AI Max expanded matches.
• Your landing pages and assets AI Max matches searches with no keyword. Counted in Total: AI Max landing page matches.

Bottom of the keywords report Two total rows. Each term also shows Match type AI Max in the search terms report.

Why you saw them “in the search terms report”

The total rows belong to the keywords report. The search terms report carries the same traffic a different way: each AI Max query gets Match type “AI Max”, and you can add a Source column by hand to see what triggered it. Google adds a caveat on the same help page. Filtering the search terms report to Match type = AI Max leaves out the “Other search terms” bucket, so the footer totals can be larger than anything you can list term by term.

What a “Total:” row is

A total row adds up a group of rows. In the CSV export it leaves the campaign and keyword columns blank, which is why the label is followed by a run of commas before the clicks, cost and conversions.

Why a nonzero row isn’t free volume

Adalysis found that the expanded-matches total can include searches your exact and phrase keywords were already winning, so I don’t read it as extra traffic. I read both rows as a list of traffic nobody picked, which makes it the first place I audit.

Here’s what that traffic did on one service account. I ran a 14-day split: AI Max with search term matching on in one campaign, a manual phrase and exact control in the other, same budget, creative and landing pages.

First-party data, one account

Change versus the manual control

On the dashboard

CPC Control $3.89, AI Max $2.26

-42%

Form fills Control 32, AI Max 45

+41%

For the business

Qualified leads (CRM-marked) Control 14, AI Max 8

-43%

Cost per qualified lead Control $178, AI Max $313

+76%

Change versus the manual control

Metric	Control	AI Max	Change
CPC	$3.89	$2.26	-42%
Form fills	32	45	+41%
Qualified leads (CRM-marked)	14	8	-43%
Cost per qualified lead	$178	$313	+76%

Metric	Control	AI Max	Change
CPC	$3.89	$2.26	-42%
Form fills	32	45	+41%
Qualified leads (CRM-marked)	14	8	-43%
Cost per qualified lead	$178	$313	+76%

The dashboard looked like a win. Almost all the extra volume came from educational queries the landing page pulled in, people researching rather than buying. That’s one account in one vertical over two weeks, so it isn’t a verdict on AI Max everywhere. The full write-up is in I ran AI Max for two weeks against a manual campaign.

What I do with these rows

I judge the traffic by cost per qualified lead. In that test, a qualified lead was one the sales team marked qualified after a discovery call. In the accounts I run day to day, it’s a booked appointment, tracked in WhatConverts. CPC and form fills both looked better on the dashboard and pointed the wrong way. If your tracking can’t separate a booked appointment from a form fill, fix that before you read anything AI Max reports.

I pull the terms first. Add the Source column, filter Match type to AI Max, open the “Search terms and ad combinations” view (formerly “Search terms and landing pages from AI Max”), sort by cost and read the zero-conversion rows. Across the accounts I manage, a median 30.7% of visible search-term spend went to terms with 2 or more clicks and zero conversions in Q3 2026 (N = 25), and the report itself showed only a median 52% of spend (N = 11). Both rows are in my Q3 2026 benchmarks.

I negate on a shared list. I wait two weeks before I negate anything, because acting on three days of AI Max terms is guessing. After that, research queries that don’t book go on a shared negative list attached to every Search campaign, so the same term can’t leak back in through another campaign. You can also add a term straight from the report with “Add as negative keyword”, or a bad page with “Add as negative URL”.

I use brand exclusions. You add brand lists in the Brands section of the AI Max settings. Google’s AI Max setup page makes brand exclusions a campaign-level control. My default for a client’s own name is phrase negatives on a shared list, and I only bid on it when a competitor holds that search above the organic listing. A brand exclusion keeps AI Max from quietly rebuilding the brand campaign I chose not to run.

I consider turning off final URL expansion. It’s on by default, and it lets Google send clicks to whatever page on your domain it predicts will do better. You turn it off in the Asset optimization panel of the AI Max settings, and turning off text customization switches it off too. If you want to keep it, URL exclusions block specific pages at the campaign level. On a lead-gen account, a blog post or resources page is exactly the kind of page that pulls in researchers, so those are the first pages I’d exclude.

If the landing page row keeps filling with the wrong intent, the bigger switch is search term matching. It has to be on at the campaign level, and you can turn it off ad group by ad group. Google says search term matching, final URL expansion and text customization need conversion-based Smart Bidding to work well, so a weak conversion signal makes all three worse. The match-type mistakes that feed the same leak are on keyword matching mistakes that waste spend, and the CPC trap is on lowering CPC without losing conversions.

When to bring me in

Bring me in when those AI Max rows carry real spend and you can’t tell whether they produce booked appointments, when cost per lead rose after AI Max went on, or when the matched terms look nothing like your services. Add me read-only and I’ll pull your AI Max terms, sort them by cost and tell you which to keep.

I'm Conner Crowe, and I write every audit myself. Send the free audit request and add me as a read-only user, and within 24 hours of access you'll have a written read on where the spend leaks and what to fix first. No call needed, and nothing in your account or store changes.

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