Language Targeting Is Gone From Google Ads Search Campaigns

Google has removed language targeting from Search campaigns. This was the setting where you chose which languages a campaign should target. Google now decides for itself which ad to show, based on the language of the search and the ad and on what it knows about the user's languages.

The change affects all Search campaigns and the part of Performance Max that appears on Google Search. Google says advertisers don't need to do anything, and campaigns do keep running. Language is now determined by your ad copy and landing pages, though, and an account that has relied on the setting may have a lot mixed up there.

My recommendation is to review your account once now, and with particular care if you advertise in both Swedish and English. Below you will find what has changed, what it means for a Swedish account and the order in which to work through it.

What has changed and when

This change has been coming for a long time. Google first said the setting would go by the end of 2025 and then announced on 14 August 2026 that it would happen from September 2026. Google's help page gives only the month and no exact date. On 4 November 2026 PPC News Feed reported that the setting is now gone from Search campaigns.

Google's developer documentation states that manual language targeting isn't supported on Google Search. In most other channels the setting remains.

Campaign or channel	Does the language setting apply?
Search campaigns and AI Max	No
Performance Max on Google Search	No
Performance Max on YouTube, Display, Discover and Gmail	Yes
Shopping ads in Performance Max	No, they are not affected by language settings
Display, video, Demand Gen and app campaigns	Yes

How Google chooses the language today

According to Google's description, ads on Google Search are matched using three things:

• the language of the search
• the user's language settings and preferences
• the language of the ad and the landing page

A user's language is a broad concept. PPC Land gives Google's definition as any language a person has set, uses regularly or has searched in. My interpretation is that most Swedes count as speakers of both Swedish and English.

Two rules are worth knowing. For a search in a clear language, the ad and landing page in that language should come first. If someone searches for konferenshotell stockholm the Swedish ad should appear, and if they search for conference hotel stockholm the English one should. For searches with no clear language, the person's most preferred language comes first, and brand searches are Google's own example.

Two things remain as before. Google doesn't translate your ads, and you still can't exclude a language. Ads can also appear for searches in another language if Google judges that the person understands both the ad and the landing page.

What this means for a Swedish account

This is my interpretation, because Google hasn't published any figures on the effect.

• Swedish ads only, in Sweden. The difference will probably be small. Still keep an eye on whether English searches turn up among your search terms.
• Swedish and English campaigns side by side. This is where the change shows most. The setting may have kept your campaigns apart, and now your copy and landing pages have to do that job. An English ad with a Swedish landing page gives Google conflicting signals.
• Campaigns in several Nordic countries. Location targeting works as before and you still choose the country yourself. My assessment is that short searches in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish can be hard to tell apart and are therefore worth an extra look.
• Searches for your brand. If you have ads in two languages, a Swede whose preferred language is English may get the English ad when searching for your name.

How to review your account

1. Check that the setting has gone. Open a Search campaign and look under Settings. If the language option is still there, the change has probably not reached your account yet, and you can do the rest of this list in advance.
2. List the campaigns that relied on the language setting. This mainly means campaigns with the same keywords in two languages and campaigns targeted at English to reach a particular group.
3. Keep one language per ad group. Keywords, headlines, descriptions and sitelinks should all be in the same language. It is the same idea as in one ad text per search intent. Separate campaigns per language also give you better control of budgets and reports.
4. Check your landing pages. Each ad should lead to a page in the same language as the ad. Look especially for English pages with leftover Swedish passages. How to catch faults like these in time is covered in the post on the landing page that stopped working.
5. Read your search terms since September. I haven't found a language column in the report, so the simplest approach is to export the search terms and go through them by hand. Some Search campaigns also moved to AI Max on 1 September, so a change in traffic may have two explanations.
6. Add to your negative keywords. Languages can't be excluded, so negative keywords are what remains when the wrong searches turn up.
7. Split Performance Max by language. Keep each asset group in one language and keep the correct language setting, because it still applies to YouTube, Display, Discover and Gmail.
8. Check tools and scripts. If you create campaigns with a tool connected to the Google Ads API, the language option should be removed from there for Search campaigns. Existing values can stay but no longer affect targeting.

How we can help with the languages in your account

The question matters most for businesses that meet customers in several languages, for example in experiences, media and travel. We can go through your campaign structure, landing pages and search terms language by language and fix what is mixed up. This is part of our work with Google Ads.

Next step

Start with step two in the list, because it shows how much there is to do. Which of your campaigns kept two languages apart using the setting that has now gone?