Negative keywords in Google Ads tell Google which searches your ads should never show for, such as “plumber jobs” when you aren’t hiring, or “free” when you only sell paid plans. Every irrelevant click you block leaves more budget for searches that can turn into customers.
They behave differently from normal keywords, and that’s where most mistakes happen: negatives don’t match plurals or synonyms, and the wrong negative match type can block good searches. This guide covers negative match types, the levels where you can add them in 2026, starter lists by business type (including Roman Urdu and Arabic patterns), Performance Max and AI Max rules, and a weekly routine.
Key takeaways
- Negative keywords block searches containing terms you choose; they don’t match plurals, synonyms or other close variants, so add those yourself.
- Negative broad blocks searches with all your terms in any order; negative phrase needs the same order; negative exact needs the identical search.
- Use account-level negatives (up to 1,000) for universal junk and shared lists (20 per account, 5,000 terms each) for themes.
- Performance Max accepts up to 10,000 campaign-level negatives, and account-level negatives apply to it automatically.
- Review the search terms report weekly; negatives you add from it default to negative exact match, so adjust the match type.
What are negative keywords in Google Ads?
A negative keyword is a word or phrase that keeps your ad out of the auction for any search containing it. A normal keyword says “show my ad for searches like this”; a negative says “never for this”.
The best negatives come from searches that look like yours but come from different people: job seekers (“plumber salary”), DIY researchers (“how to fix a leaking tap”), bargain hunters (“free logo maker”) or people after something you don’t sell. Google’s own example is an optometrist excluding “wine glasses” and “drinking glasses”.
Negatives matter more in 2026 than a few years ago, because broad match and AI Max reach well beyond your keyword list and negatives are one of the controls left in your hands. If match types are new to you, read how Google Ads match types work first, and see our Google Ads guide for small businesses for the rest of the account.
How do negative keyword match types work?
Negative keywords come in broad, phrase and exact, but they’re stricter than positive keywords: they never match close variants. Add the plurals and synonyms you want blocked yourself; Google says negatives already account for casing and misspellings.
| Search | Negative broad: used laptops | Negative phrase: “used laptops” | Negative exact: [used laptops] |
|---|---|---|---|
| used laptops | Blocked | Blocked | Blocked |
| used laptops lahore | Blocked | Blocked | Can show |
| laptops used for gaming | Blocked | Can show | Can show |
| used laptop | Can show | Can show | Can show |
| refurbished laptops | Can show | Can show | Can show |
Row three shows the risk of negative broad: it blocked a shopper looking for a new gaming laptop, because the search contains both words. Row four shows the gap: the singular slips through all three, so you would add used laptop too. Row five is why you also need synonyms such as refurbished and second hand.
- Syntax: quotes for negative phrase, square brackets for negative exact, and no punctuation for negative broad, which is the default.
- Very long searches: a negative that appears after the 16th word of a search is ignored.
- Symbols: negatives accept ampersands, accents and asterisks, but treat “cafe” and “café”, or “&” and “and”, as different words.
- Display and Video: every negative is treated as broad and works less precisely there, so use content exclusions for those campaigns.
Where can you add negative keywords?
At four levels in Search-based campaigns, plus a separate system for Display and Video. Use the widest level that’s safe, so one decision covers every campaign it should.
| Level | Applies to | Limit | Use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Account | Search and Shopping inventory in Search, Performance Max, Shopping, App, Smart and Local campaigns | 1,000 negatives | Terms you never want anywhere, such as jobs or adult terms |
| Shared negative keyword list | Every campaign you apply it to | 20 lists per account, 5,000 negatives each | Themes like jobs, DIY or free, reused across campaigns |
| Campaign | One campaign, including Performance Max | 10,000 negatives per campaign | Services or places that campaign doesn’t cover |
| Ad group | One Search ad group | No separate cap listed by Google | Steering searches to the right ad group, such as blocking implants in a whitening ad group |
| Display and Video campaigns | Pages and videos, not searches | 1,000 negatives considered | Better handled with content exclusions and excluded content keywords |
Menu paths as of September 2026:
- Account level: Admin, then Account settings, then expand the Negative keywords section.
- Shared lists: Tools, then Shared library, then Exclusion lists, on the Negative keyword lists tab. A list only works once it’s applied to campaigns.
- Campaign and ad group: Campaigns, then Audiences, keywords, and content, then Search keywords, on the Negative search keywords tab.
How to add negative keywords in Google Ads
Your own search terms report is the best source of negatives, because it shows real searches you paid for. Here’s how to add them from there:
- Go to Campaigns, open Insights and reports, and select Search terms.
- Set the date range to the period since your last review and sort by cost.
- Tick the irrelevant searches and click Add as negative keyword.
- Choose where they go: the ad group or campaign they came from, an existing negative keyword list, or a new list applied to the same campaigns.
- Before saving, set the right match type. Google adds negatives from this report as negative exact by default, which blocks only that one search; a single word such as salary, added as negative phrase or broad, often does more.
To add negatives before launch, type them during campaign setup with a minus sign in front (-jobs), or paste a starter list into a shared list and apply it to the new campaign.
Watch out
Never add a negative that overlaps one of your own keywords; Google warns that the overlap stops your ad showing. If a keyword suddenly stops serving, check campaign negatives, shared lists (including lists applied from a manager account) and account-level negatives. Our guide to why Google Ads stop showing covers the other causes.
Negative keywords list: starter examples by business type
Treat these lists as a first pass, not a copy-and-paste fix. Check every word against how your customers search: “cheap” is junk for a luxury salon and a buying signal for a discount store.
| Business type | Starter negatives | Think twice before adding |
|---|---|---|
| Every business (account level) | jobs, job, careers, hiring, vacancy, salary, internship, resume, cv | careers or hiring, if you advertise vacancies |
| Local services (plumber, electrician, cleaner) | diy, how to, course, training, apprenticeship, tools, youtube, manual | parts, if you also sell parts |
| Clinics and healthcare | course, degree, textbook, pdf, wikipedia, salary | symptoms, because some researchers become patients |
| E-commerce store | used, second hand, repair, manual, free, download, wholesale (if retail only) | cheap and price, which often signal buyers |
| B2B software | free, open source, crack, login, sign in, tutorial | free trial, if you offer one |
| Agencies and consultants | course, certification, template, examples, pdf, internship | template, if you sell templates |
Roman Urdu and Arabic junk-query patterns
If you target Pakistan or the Gulf, searches often arrive in Roman Urdu or Arabic, and Google can show ads in one language to multilingual people searching in another. Patterns worth excluding when they don’t fit your offer:
- Roman Urdu: naukri (job), tankhwah (salary), muft (free), kaise (how to), kya hai (what is), pdf download.
- Arabic: وظائف (jobs), راتب (salary), مجانا (free), تحميل (download), كيف (how).
Add them as negative broad or phrase in the campaigns they affect, then check the search terms report for the spellings your own customers use, since Roman Urdu has no standard spelling.
How do negative keywords work with Performance Max and AI Max?
Both respect negatives, but Performance Max needs extra care because it serves on more than search results.
- Campaign-level negatives in Performance Max: Google introduced them in January 2025 with a cap of 100 per campaign, then raised it to 10,000 in spring 2025. Add them from the Keywords page in the Campaigns menu, on the Negative keywords tab, and select the Performance Max campaign.
- Account-level negatives apply to Performance Max’s Search and Shopping inventory automatically.
- Search and Shopping only: Performance Max negatives don’t affect YouTube or Display placements. For those, use excluded content keywords in your content suitability settings.
- Brand names: a campaign-level brand exclusion also blocks misspellings and foreign-script versions of a brand, which negative keywords can’t, so it’s the better tool for brand traffic.
- AI Max: Google confirms negatives are still respected when AI Max is on, which makes a solid negative list the main safeguard for its keywordless matching.
- Estimate first: Performance Max can predict the impact of adding negatives before you save them.
For the rest of the setup, see our guide to Performance Max for small businesses.
A weekly negative keyword routine
Twenty minutes a week keeps most waste out. Follow the same order each time:
- Open the search terms report for the last seven days, sorted by cost.
- Mark searches that could never become customers, and choose the level: one ad group, a campaign, a shared list or the whole account.
- Pick the match type that blocks the junk without blocking buyers, and prefer single-word negatives (salary) over whole searches.
- Note converting searches as well, and add the best as exact match keywords.
- If a blocked term still appears, check the change history: the negative may have been added after those clicks happened.
- Once a month, review your lists for negatives that now block good searches, especially after adding a new service.
Searches used by very few people are hidden from the report for privacy, so it never shows every search you paid for. Scan search terms insights for themes too, and if you’d rather have someone else run this routine, our Google Ads management team does it weekly.
How TechZone can help
TechZone builds and maintains negative keyword lists as part of managing Google Ads for small businesses. We start with account-level and shared lists tailored to your services and languages, including Roman Urdu and Arabic patterns where relevant, then review search terms every week so waste is caught early. If you would rather hand the account over, our Google Ads management covers setup, optimization and reporting. Find out more about our digital marketing services, or book a free 30-minute call to go through your search terms report together.
Frequently asked questions
Do negative keywords improve Quality Score?
Negative keywords don’t change Quality Score directly, because Google calculates Quality Score from searches that exactly match your keyword. What negative keywords do is stop spend on irrelevant searches, which tends to lift clickthrough rate and conversion rate in your reports and lower the cost per lead. Treat them as a way to protect budget rather than a way to raise Quality Score.
How many negative keywords should a Google Ads account have?
There is no ideal number of negative keywords. A new account might start with a few dozen universal negatives, such as job and free terms, and grow the list every week from the search terms report. The limits are generous: 1,000 account-level negatives, 20 shared lists of 5,000 terms and 10,000 per campaign. Quality matters more than count, because one wrong negative can block buyers.
Should I add competitor names as negative keywords?
Add competitor names as negative keywords if you don’t want your ads showing when people search for a competitor, which broad match and AI Max can otherwise allow. For brand names, campaign-level brand exclusions are often the better tool, because they also block misspellings and brand names written in other scripts. If you do want to bid on competitor names, put them in a separate campaign with ads that don’t use their trademarks.
Can I share negative keyword lists across Google Ads accounts?
Yes. A Google Ads manager account can hold up to 20 negative keyword lists of its own and apply them to the accounts it manages, which suits agencies and businesses with several accounts. Without a manager account, copy the lists between accounts with Google Ads Editor or by exporting and pasting them. Check each list afterwards, because a negative that suits one business can block another’s customers.
Sources and further reading
- About negative keywords – Google Ads Help
- Add negative keywords to campaigns – Google Ads Help
- About account-level negative keywords – Google Ads Help
- Get negative keyword ideas using the search terms report – Google Ads Help
- More goals and image controls coming to Performance Max – Google Ads Help
- About your Google Ads account limits – Google Ads Help
