Negative Keywords: Match Types, Levels and Starter Lists for Google Ads

Every advertiser who runs broad or phrase match keywords pays for some irrelevant searches. Negative keywords are the main tool to cut that waste. Google defines them in its help page About negative keywords, with the example of an optometrist who excludes "wine glasses" so that eyeglasses ads do not appear for drinkware searches. This guide explains how they behave in Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, where to add them, how to find them and which mistakes cost the most.

What are negative keywords?

A negative keyword is an exclusion: when a search query matches it, the ad is not eligible to show, even if one of your regular keywords matches the same query. A hotel in Toronto bidding on "hotel toronto" adds "jobs" so it does not appear for "hotel jobs toronto". A software company bidding on "crm software" adds "free" and "open source" if it only sells paid plans.

Negative keywords matter more as Google widens matching. Broad match, paid search automation such as AI Max for Search and Performance Max all show ads for searches you never typed as keywords. Google states that negative keywords are still respected when AI Max is turned on (FAQ about AI Max for Search campaigns, checked October 2026). They are the part of the targeting you still control directly, and every useless click they remove lowers your average cost per click on conversions.

How do negative keyword match types work?

Negative match types behave differently from regular match types. The key rule from Google: negative keywords do not match close variants. A negative "flowers" does not block "red flower", so singular, plural, synonyms and common misspellings must be added one by one.

Three details from the Google Ads help that cause surprises:

• Symbols count: accents and ampersands are recognised, so "socks & shoes" and "socks and shoes" are two different negatives.
• Very long queries: Google notes that a negative appearing after the 16th word of a search may not block the ad.
• Display and Video: negatives work by topic on those networks, and only 1,000 negatives are considered at the account level.

Microsoft Advertising is stricter: its help center lists only two negative match types, negative phrase and negative exact, with no broad negative, and it does not filter plurals or misspellings either (Microsoft Advertising documentation). If you import campaigns from Google into Microsoft Ads, check how your broad negatives were converted.

Where can you add negative keywords?

Each level has a scope and a limit. Put a negative at the highest level where it is always true, and keep narrow exclusions at the ad group level.

The numbers come from Google's pages on Google Ads account limits and on account-level negative keywords. Microsoft Advertising also offers an account-level list of up to 1,000 negatives that applies to Search, Shopping and Performance Max campaigns, plus campaign, ad group and shared lists.

How do you find negative keywords?

The search terms report is the source of almost every useful negative: it shows the queries that triggered your ads, the keyword that matched and the clicks, cost and conversions of each one. Google omits queries with too little volume for privacy reasons, so the report never shows 100% of spend.

1. Sort by cost over the last 30 to 90 days and filter on zero conversions.
2. Read the intent of each expensive term: job search, research, free version, wrong product, wrong location. Use the search intent of the query, not only its words.
3. Extract the single word that carries the wrong intent ("jobs", "diy", "used") and add it as a negative phrase or broad at the right level, instead of excluding the full query as exact.
4. Check for conflicts: the keyword diagnosis in Google Ads shows when a negative keyword prevents one of your own keywords from triggering an ad.
5. Repeat weekly on large accounts, every two weeks on small ones, and after each new campaign launch.

Before you launch, a keyword tool also helps: list the related searches around your main terms and mark the ones with the wrong intent. A structured keyword research gives you both the terms to bid on and the first negative list.

Starter negative keyword lists by sector

No list fits every account, but some terms almost never convert for a given business. Use this table as a starting point, then validate each term against your own search terms report.

Treat "free", "cheap" and "how to" with care: a freemium product, a discount retailer or an online course sells to exactly those searches. Your Google Ads cost drops only if the excluded queries were truly unprofitable.

Which negative keyword mistakes cost the most?

• Blocking profitable searches: a broad negative of one generic word ("best", "online", "near") can remove a large share of good traffic. Check the conversion value of every query containing the word before you exclude it.
• Adding your brand as a broad negative to keep non-brand campaigns clean: it also blocks every query that combines the brand with a product name. Exact or phrase negatives on the brand alone keep more control.
• Forgetting variants: "job" and "jobs" are two negatives, in Google and in Microsoft Ads.
• Never removing old negatives: a term excluded two years ago may match a product you sell today.
• Over-filtering automated campaigns: too many negatives reduce reach, which Google warns about, and leave smart bidding with too little data.

A periodic Google Ads audit should review the negative lists as carefully as the keywords. Cleaner traffic also improves expected click-through rate, one of the components of the Quality Score.

How do negative keywords connect to SEO and GEO?

The search terms report is one of the best sources of real search language you have. It shows two lists that your organic strategy can use:

• Queries that convert in paid search: proven commercial terms. Pages that rank organically on them save budget over time, which you can estimate with the SEO vs paid savings calculator.
• Queries you excluded: informational searches ("how to", "what is", "vs") are poor ad targets but good article topics. People ask the same questions to ChatGPT, Gemini and Perplexity, which cite pages that answer them clearly.

This is the logic behind combining SEO and PPC: paid search tests demand fast, organic content captures it at a lower cost. Sorank, our product, finds keywords automatically and publishes articles that target those informational searches, written to be found on Google and cited by AI assistants, with its blog article generator.

Key takeaways

Negative keywords protect the budget that automation spends: add them from the search terms report, choose the match type with care, put each one at the right level and review them on a fixed schedule. Measure the effect on return with the ROAS calculator, read our complete Google Ads guide for the rest of the account, and turn the searches you exclude into organic content with Sorank, from $49 per month with a 3-day free trial.