Negative Keywords in Google Ads: Meaning, Types and a Starter List

Negative keywords in Google Ads are search terms you exclude so your ads stop showing for queries that will never convert, like "free," "jobs" or "salary" attached to something you sell as a paid service. They work opposite to your regular keywords: instead of triggering your ad, they block it. Get the match types and levels right and you stop paying for clicks that were never going to buy.

I add a negative keyword list to every Google Ads account I set up before the first ad goes live, because it is the cheapest budget protection available and takes minutes. This guide covers what negative keywords mean, the three match types and how they differ from positive match types, where to add them, a starter list by theme for Indian small businesses, how they behave differently inside Performance Max, and the weekly routine that keeps a list current.

What negative keywords are and why they matter

A negative keyword stops your ad from showing when someone searches for a specific word or phrase, the opposite job to a regular keyword. Add "free" as a negative and your ad will not appear for "free dental checkup," even though "dental checkup" is one of your regular keywords.

They matter because Google Ads, especially on broad match, shows your ad for any search it judges related to your keyword, not only close variations. Without negatives, some share of your budget always goes to clicks from people who were never going to buy: job seekers, students, researchers and bargain hunters who share vocabulary with your buyers but not their intent. A clinic bidding on "dental implants" without negatives can end up paying for "dental implants course fees" or "dental implants salary," neither of which is a patient, and every irrelevant click quietly drags down the conversion rate Google Ads uses to judge the campaign.

The waste is easy to underestimate until you put a rupee figure on it. On a Rs 1,000 daily budget at an average cost per click of Rs 15, that is roughly 66 clicks a day. If even 15 percent of those clicks come from irrelevant searches, a realistic share for an account with no negative list, that is around 10 clicks a day, or Rs 150, spent on people who were never going to buy. Over a month that is close to Rs 4,500, often more than the cost of the handful of minutes it takes to build a proper negative list in the first place.

The three negative match types

Negative keywords in Google Ads use the same three match types as regular keywords, broad, phrase and exact, but each behaves differently once it is negative rather than positive. Google's own help page on negative keywords sets out all three, and the table below shows what each one blocks in practice.

Broad match negative is the default if you type a negative keyword with no punctuation, and it is the strictest of the three at blocking traffic: it excludes any search that contains all the words in your negative keyword, in any order, alongside other words. Phrase match negative, written in quotes, excludes a search only if it contains your exact phrase in that word order, with anything else allowed before or after it. Exact match negative, written in square brackets, is the loosest at blocking traffic: it excludes a search only when it matches your negative keyword precisely, with no extra words at all.

How negative match types differ from positive keywords

Negative match types do not automatically cover synonyms, misspellings or plural and singular forms the way Google's positive keyword matching increasingly does. If you add "job" as a negative, "jobs" is a different word and may still trigger your ad on some match settings, so add both. If you add "course" as a negative, add "courses" too.

This is the single most common technical mistake I find in accounts that already use negatives. The list looks complete, but it only blocks the exact word forms someone typed in, and the account keeps paying for the plural, the misspelling or the regional variant nobody thought to add. Building a starter list by theme, which the next section covers, catches most of these because you write out the natural variations as you go rather than adding one word at a time.

Where to add negative keywords: ad group, campaign, account and shared lists

Negative keywords can sit at three levels inside a campaign structure, plus a fourth option that spans campaigns. Ad group level negatives block a term for that ad group only, which is useful when the same campaign sells two things and a word is fine for one but not the other. Campaign level negatives block a term across every ad group in that campaign, the most common level for everyday exclusions.

For terms you want blocked everywhere, such as "free," "jobs" or a competitor's brand name, build a reusable negative keyword list instead of retyping the same words into every campaign. Google's guide to creating and applying negative keyword lists walks through the exact screens, found under the Tools menu in the account. A list applied to every campaign in the account functions as an account-wide negative list, and it is the fastest way to keep a growing account consistent without editing each campaign by hand.

A starter negative keyword list for Indian small businesses

Most small business accounts in India waste budget on the same handful of query themes, regardless of industry. These seven themes cover the bulk of what I add to a brand new account before the first click, and they apply whether you sell dental care, interior design, coaching or home services.

Jobs, salary and careers. Add job, jobs, salary, vacancy, internship, hiring and career. Someone searching "interior designer salary Pune" is researching a profession, not hiring one.

Free, DIY and how-to. Add free, DIY, do it yourself, at home and how to. A search for "how to fix a leaking tap at home" is not a plumber's paying customer.

Courses, meaning and definitions. Add course, courses, meaning, definition, syllabus and certification. "Digital marketing course meaning" is a student, not a client.

Wholesale, bulk and second-hand. Add wholesale, bulk, second hand, used and refurbished, if your business sells retail or services rather than bulk supply.

Competitor and brand support queries. Add named competitors plus their common support terms like login, customer care and complaint, unless you deliberately run a competitor-targeting campaign.

Government and public sector. Add government, sarkari, PMC and municipal corporation if you run a private clinic, school or service business that could be confused with a subsidised public one.

Reviews, complaints and comparisons. Add complaint, scam, fraud and reviews if these words tend to surface unrelated research traffic rather than buyers in your category.

Paste a short starter batch straight into the negative keywords box, one per line, mixing match types where it helps:

free
"how to"
[jobs]
salary
course
wholesale

Review this list against your own category before adding it. A wholesale trader wants "wholesale" removed from their own negative list, not added to it, and a training institute needs "course" and "meaning" removed since those are exactly the buyers they want. My keyword research for beginners guide covers building the positive side of your list first, so you know which words are genuinely off-topic instead of guessing.

How negative keywords work in Performance Max

Performance Max negative keywords work differently to Search campaigns in two ways, and both catch people out. First, campaign-level negative keywords in Performance Max only affect Search and Shopping inventory inside that campaign, not the Display, YouTube, Gmail and Discover placements the same campaign also uses, according to Google's own page on negative keywords in Performance Max. There is no equivalent lever for excluding a search-like query from those other placements.

Second, an account-level negative keyword list applies automatically to every eligible campaign, Performance Max included, for its Search and Shopping inventory, without you doing anything extra once the list exists. Because that account-level list is capped at 1,000 entries in total, keep it for exclusions that should apply everywhere, like the themes above, and use campaign-level negatives for anything specific to one Performance Max campaign, such as a product line you deliberately exclude from just that campaign.

Performance Max also does not give you a live keyword-by-keyword report the way Search does, so finding what to exclude takes more digging. The Search terms insights panel inside a Performance Max campaign groups the queries that triggered it into categories, which is where I look first for anything irrelevant before adding it as a campaign-level negative. If you are weighing a first Performance Max campaign at all, Performance Max for small business covers when it is worth the reduced visibility.

Do not confuse negative keywords with the separate exclusion tools Performance Max also offers, which solve different problems. Brand exclusions stop your own campaign from showing against searches for your own or a partner's brand name, account-level and campaign-level placement exclusions stop specific websites, apps or YouTube channels from showing your Display and video ads, and audience signals only guide where Google looks for buyers, they do not block anything. A negative keyword is the only one of these that blocks an actual search query, so it stays the right tool whenever the problem is a specific irrelevant search term rather than a placement or a competitor's brand.

The weekly search terms review

A negative list is never finished. New irrelevant searches appear every week as your ads reach new people, so treat this as a recurring ten-minute task, not a one-time setup step.

Step 1: Open the Search Terms report for the last 7 days

In the left menu, open Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms, and set the date range to the last 7 days. Google's own guide to the search terms report explains every column if any look unfamiliar.

Step 2: Scan for queries that do not match your buyer

Sort by clicks or cost so the expensive irrelevant terms surface first. Tick every query that has nothing to do with what you sell, using the seven starter themes above as a checklist for what usually shows up.

Step 3: Add the worst offenders as negatives at the right level

Add a term that will never be relevant to any campaign, like "free," to your account-wide list. Add a term that is only wrong for one campaign, such as a product you do not stock in one line, at that campaign's level instead.

Step 4: Check you have not blocked a term that already converts

Before saving, cross-check each new negative against your Conversions column for the same report. A common pitfall is adding a broad single word that also appears inside a query that has already produced a lead, which quietly turns off traffic that was working.

Step 5: Save recurring exclusions to your shared list

If the same type of irrelevant query keeps appearing across campaigns, move it from a one-off campaign negative into your shared negative keyword list so every new campaign inherits it automatically, and you are not fixing the same problem twice next month.

Common mistakes: over-blocking and the other ways this goes wrong

Over-blocking is the mistake I see most, and it is the opposite failure to having no negatives at all. Adding a broad single word like "clinic" as a negative because one irrelevant search happened to contain it can silently exclude real patients searching "best clinic near me." Add the specific phrase that was actually irrelevant, not the broadest word inside it.

A second mistake is a negative keyword that directly conflicts with one of your own paid keywords, which silently stops that keyword from ever triggering an ad. Google Ads will flag some of these conflicts in the interface, but not all of them, so it is worth scanning your negative list against your keyword list occasionally rather than assuming the platform will always catch it.

A third mistake is treating the list as a one-time setup task rather than a weekly habit, which lets obvious waste accumulate for months. A fourth is copying a generic negative keyword list from a blog without adapting it to your category, which is exactly why the starter list above tells you to remove themes that describe your own customers. If your negative list is clean but the account still is not converting, the cause usually sits elsewhere in the funnel, and I cover the other eleven places to check in why Google Ads is not converting.

When negative keywords are not the real fix

Negative keywords fix wasted spend on irrelevant traffic. They do not fix broken conversion tracking, a landing page that does not match the ad, or a weak offer, because those problems exist even on the clicks that are perfectly relevant. A clean negative list on a campaign that still has no conversions is a sign to look at tracking and the landing page next, not to keep tightening keywords.

They also will not rescue a campaign that has too little budget to gather data in the first place. Blocking waste on a Rs 300 daily budget still leaves you with very few clicks to learn from, and the bigger lever at that stage is usually the budget and bidding strategy, covered in Google Ads budget for small business, not a longer negative list. Used well, negative keywords are a maintenance habit that protects a healthy campaign. They are rarely the single fix for a campaign that is fundamentally under-resourced or broken somewhere else, and how to reduce cost per lead covers the fuller set of levers once tracking and negatives are both in order.

For businesses setting up their first account, my guides to Google Ads setup for small business and Google Ads for local business cover where a negative keyword list fits into the wider setup, and Google Ads for small business and SEO vs Google Ads go wider on strategy and channel choice.

Frequently asked questions

What are negative keywords in Google Ads?

A negative keyword is a word or phrase you add to a Google Ads campaign or ad group to stop your ad showing whenever a search includes it. It works opposite to a regular keyword: a regular keyword triggers your ad, a negative keyword blocks it. Negatives can be added at the ad group, campaign or account level, and Google Ads supports three match types, broad, phrase and exact, that control how closely a search has to match before it gets excluded. Most accounts need dozens of negatives to run efficiently.

What is an example of a negative keyword?

If you run a paid dental clinic and add "free" as a negative keyword, your ad stops showing for searches like "free dental checkup camp" or "free tooth extraction," even though "dental checkup" and "tooth extraction" are keywords you are bidding on. Other common examples for a service business include "jobs," "salary," "course" and "DIY," since all of them attract people researching a topic rather than people ready to pay for it.

Should I add negative keywords at the account, campaign or ad group level?

Use ad group level for a word that is wrong for one ad group but fine elsewhere in the same campaign. Use campaign level for a word that is wrong across an entire campaign. Use a shared negative keyword list, applied to every campaign, for words that should never trigger any ad in the account, such as "free," "jobs" or a competitor's name. Most small accounts run on a mix of one broad shared list plus a handful of campaign-specific exclusions.

Do negative keywords work in Performance Max campaigns?

Yes, but with limits. Campaign-level negative keywords in Performance Max only affect its Search and Shopping inventory, not the Display, YouTube or Gmail placements the same campaign uses. An account-level negative keyword list applies automatically to that Search and Shopping inventory across all eligible campaigns, Performance Max included. There is no way to exclude a specific query from the non-search parts of a Performance Max campaign, which is one reason its reporting stays more limited than a Search campaign's.

Can adding too many negative keywords hurt my Google Ads campaign?

Yes, this is called over-blocking, and it is a common mistake. Adding a broad single word as a negative because it appeared in one irrelevant search can also exclude genuinely relevant searches that happen to contain the same word, quietly cutting off real buyers. Add the specific phrase that was actually irrelevant rather than the broadest word inside it, and check new negatives against your Conversions column before saving them.

Related guides

• Google Ads not converting? 11 causes and how to fix each
• Google Ads setup for small business: a step-by-step guide
• Google Ads budget for small business: how much to spend
• Google Ads for local business
• Google Ads for small business
• Keyword research for beginners
• How to reduce cost per lead
• SEO vs Google Ads: which should you do first?

Your next step

Add the seven starter themes above to your account today, then put the five-step weekly search terms review on a recurring calendar reminder so the list stays current. If your traffic is already clean but the account still is not converting, why Google Ads is not converting covers the other places to look, or get in touch if you want a second pair of eyes on the list.