Negative Keywords · Strategy, Match Types & Shared Lists

Negative keywords exclude queries that are irrelevant to your business — queries where even a click would not contribute to your business goals. Without negative keywords, broad and phrase match keywords will generate impressions and clicks for queries that share words with your keywords but represent entirely different intent.

A campaign selling premium running shoes without negatives would likely generate clicks from "free running shoes", "running shoes for children" (if targeting adult shoes), "running shoes repair", and "running shoes costume" — all queries triggered by "running shoes" that represent no commercial opportunity.

How negatives improve Quality Score

Negative keywords improve expected CTR — a component of Quality Score — by preventing your ads from showing for queries where they are unlikely to be clicked. An ad for premium running shoes appearing for "free running shoes" will have very low CTR (users searching "free" are unlikely to click a paid ad), which directly reduces the expected CTR component of Quality Score for all keywords in that ad group.

Negative keywords have three match types — Broad, Phrase, and Exact — but they behave differently from positive match types. Most importantly, negative keywords do not use close variants. A negative exact match for [running shoes] does NOT prevent "running shoe" (singular) or "running sneakers" from triggering your ads. You must add the exact terms you want to exclude.

Before launch: seed negatives

Before spending budget, add obvious category-level negatives that apply to your business type:

• Free-intent modifiers: "free", "gratis", "no cost", "freeware", "open source" (if you sell paid products)
• Job-seeking queries: "jobs", "careers", "salary", "how to become", "apprenticeship"
• DIY/informational: "how to", "tutorial", "DIY", "guide", "template", "example" (if you sell a service, not educational content)
• Competitor names: Add competitor brand names as negatives unless you are specifically running a competitor targeting campaign
• Irrelevant verticals: If you sell dog food, add cat, fish, bird — the word "food" will match across all pet categories

Ongoing: search terms report review

Weekly review of the Search Terms report is the most important ongoing negative keyword activity. Workflow:

1. Filter Search Terms report for the past 7–14 days
2. Sort by impressions or cost (highest first)
3. Identify queries that are irrelevant to your business objective
4. Add each irrelevant query as a negative at the appropriate match type and level (campaign or ad group)
5. Consider adding the root modifier (e.g. "free") as a broad negative rather than individual queries one by one

Shared negative keyword lists (Tools → Shared Library → Negative Keyword Lists) allow you to maintain a single master list that can be applied to multiple campaigns simultaneously. When you add a term to the shared list, it automatically applies to all campaigns the list is attached to.

Recommended shared list structure

• Account-wide general exclusions. Terms that are always irrelevant across all campaigns — "jobs", "careers", "salary", "free", "DIY". Apply this list to every campaign.
• Category-specific exclusions. Terms irrelevant to specific product categories but not account-wide. Apply to the relevant campaign group only.
• Brand exclusion lists. Competitor brand names — maintain as a shared list to ensure consistent application and easy updates when new competitors emerge.

• Over-negating with broad negatives. Adding "shoes" as a broad negative on a campaign selling shoes prevents all shoe-related queries. Test negative patterns in the Keyword Planner before adding broad negatives that could accidentally block relevant traffic.
• Expecting close variant coverage. Negatives do not match close variants. "shoes" as a negative does NOT prevent "shoe" (singular). Add both forms explicitly.
• Conflicting negatives and keywords. A negative that blocks a keyword in the same campaign creates a conflict — your keyword cannot trigger because the negative prevents it. Google Ads warns about some conflicts but not all. Check for negatives that mirror your keywords when diagnosing traffic loss.
• Negative at wrong level. Adding a negative at campaign level blocks all ad groups in the campaign. Adding at ad group level only blocks within that group. Apply at the appropriate level — campaign-level negatives for terms irrelevant to all ad groups; ad group-level for terms relevant in some ad groups but not others.
• Not using Negative Exact for competitor brand targeting. If you want to target "Nike running shoes" as a competitor query, you need negative [nike] at the ad group level of your non-competitor ad groups — otherwise your broad or phrase keywords will compete with your competitor targeting ad group.

• Google Ads Search Terms report. Primary source — real queries from your actual campaigns. Review weekly.
• Google Keyword Planner. Enter your keywords to see related queries; the related keyword list reveals potential negative candidates your campaigns have not yet matched.
• Google Search Autocomplete. Type your keyword into Google Search and review autocomplete suggestions — these represent common query patterns including informational and irrelevant intents.
• Industry-specific negative lists. Many Google Ads communities maintain pre-built negative keyword lists for specific industries (e-commerce, SaaS, legal services, healthcare). These provide starting points but always verify against your specific business before applying.

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