If you run ads in more than one language, a setting you have relied on is being removed.
From late September 2026, the campaign-level language targeting setting goes away for Search and AI Max for Search campaigns. Instead, Search ads match automatically based on the language of the ads themselves.
Performance Max is affected too: language targeting no longer applies on Google Search, though it continues on other channels like YouTube and Display.
Google says existing campaigns keep running and nothing breaks. The setting simply stops being used for targeting.
Why this matters more than a removed checkbox
The lever moved from a setting you control centrally to a property of the thing itself.
Before, you could write one set of ads and tell Google which language audience to show them to. Now the ads carry their own signal, and the system reads them.
Google’s own guidance on this is the interesting part. Its advice is to make sure your ad creative and your landing pages are clearly structured in the intended languages.
Landing pages. The advice for a campaign setting is partly about your website.
What this means if you serve a bilingual market
For a business in Los Angeles County running both English and Spanish, this is a real change rather than housekeeping.
Previously you could run Spanish ads pointed at an English landing page and control the audience through the setting. That was always a poor experience, and now it’s also a targeting problem, because the signals disagree. Your ad says one language, the page says another, and the system is trying to work out who you meant.
The version that works is coherent: Spanish ads, a Spanish landing page, a Spanish form, and someone who can answer the phone in Spanish. Each of those was already good practice. Now the first two directly affect who sees you.
The version that doesn’t work is a translated headline on an otherwise English page. The system reads the whole thing.
Worth being clear about what “clearly structured” means in practice, since Google does not spell it out. The page’s declared language attribute should match the content. Navigation, headings, body text, form labels, button text and the thank-you message should all be in one language rather than drifting back to English halfway down. And if you run both, they should be separate pages rather than one page with a toggle, so each has its own address to send an ad to.
Want a second opinion on this?
Book a free consultationWhat to check
Four things, none of them long.
List which campaigns rely on the language setting. If you’ve never touched it, you’re probably unaffected and can stop here.
Read your ads and ask what language they’re in. Not what you intended. What a reader would say if shown only the ad.
Follow each ad to its landing page. Does the page match the ad’s language, all the way through the form and the confirmation?
Fix the mismatches before fixing anything else. A Spanish ad going to an English page is the case that was already costing you conversions and is now also costing you reach.
If you only have the budget or the time to do one language properly, do one language properly. A complete Spanish path, ad through page through form through the person answering, beats a half-built one in both. A prospect who clicks a Spanish ad, reads a Spanish page, and then reaches an English-only form has been walked further into a dead end than if you had never advertised to them.
If you find the pages are thin or unclear in either language, the underlying issue is the one in why minimalist, conversion-focused design wins: a page that says clearly who it’s for outperforms one that hedges.
The wider pattern
This is the same shift as the AI Max migration and automated bidding before it. Explicit settings are being replaced by signals the system infers from your actual content.
The practical consequence is that vagueness gets more expensive. When you told a platform who to target, ambiguous creative was tolerable. When the platform reads your creative to decide, ambiguity becomes a targeting error.
Which puts a higher value on knowing precisely who you serve and saying so plainly. It just has a more direct cost attached now. This is also the second change in a few months that moves cost onto something you used to control, after Google charging for calls you miss. If you run search and Local Services Ads together, read them as one story.
If you run in more than one language, this is worth an hour before the end of the month. The fix lives mostly on your website, not in the ad account.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need to remove my existing language criteria?
Google says it isn’t required. Existing campaigns keep functioning, the settings just stop being used for targeting. Removing them is optional tidying.
Does this affect Performance Max?
Partly. Language targeting no longer applies on Google Search within Performance Max, but continues on other channels such as YouTube and Display.
Will my Spanish ads still reach Spanish speakers?
If the ads are genuinely in Spanish and the pages they lead to are too, yes. The signal is the content now.
Does this affect how I should write ads?
It makes the language of the ad load-bearing rather than incidental. Write each language natively rather than translating, since machine-translated copy reads as translated to both the reader and, increasingly, the system.
