What is the issue?

When attempting to make changes to existing keywords within the Platform, you may find that new keywords are created rather than edits being made as expected. This issue is most commonly seen during bulk uploads of keywords.

What causes the issue?

Here are some of the most common reasons:
 

1. Keywords have been created within the Platform but not on the publisher’s side. Even though the keyword may show within the Platform as Synced, it was never actually pushed to the publisher.
    
2. When editing keywords, the Match Type column is necessary, but the bulk sheet doesn't include it.
    
3. Formatting issues in Excel can change the keyword text, which causes the application to not recognize the resulting keyword as an existing keyword in the application. For example, sometimes Broad Match Modified keywords will turn into #NAME in Excel and keywords that are only numbers will be reformatted.

How to fix the issue

If your case is due to the first reason described above, you can avoid it by ensuring that all keyword creation jobs are pushed to the publisher via the Activity Log. You can manually post changes by clicking Post Now. Please note that the nightly sync does not push any changes to the publisher, if the changes are not in To be sent status. You can learn more on Automatic Nightly Sync in the following Help article: Synchronizing Data With The Publishers.