The invention provides a method and device for updating keywords, and belongs to the technical field of terminals. The method includes the steps that at least one target search term is obtained, and at least one target search term is an input term when the search of at least one user fails; for any target search term in the at least one target search term, if a target keyword identification exists in a keyword database, the target search term and the target keyword identification are determined as data to be updated, the target keyword identification is a keyword identification corresponding to the target search term, the keyword database is used for storing keyword sets corresponding to various keyword identifications, each keyword set includes at least one keyword and the keywords are synonyms or near synonyms; the data to be updated is sent to a terminal, the terminal updates the keywords corresponding to the target keyword identifications. The method and device improve the hit rate of searching.