Negative Keywords
Negative keywords prevent ads from showing for irrelevant searches in Google Ads and Microsoft Advertising, protecting budget and relevance.
What are negative keywords?
Negative keywords tell Google Ads or Microsoft Advertising which searches should not trigger your ads. If a software company adds “free” or “jobs” as negatives, its ads won’t appear for people looking for free tools or vacancies.
Negative keywords are one of the most effective ways to protect budget and relevance, especially with broad match, Smart Bidding and AI Max, which deliberately expand the searches your ads can show for. They can be set at ad group, campaign or account level, and shared across campaigns as negative keyword lists.
Some details are easy to miss:
- Negative keywords also have match types, but they don’t automatically include close variants – add plurals and common misspellings yourself.
- Use them to steer traffic between your own campaigns, for example keeping brand searches out of generic campaigns.
- Review the search terms report regularly; it is the main source for new negatives.
In international accounts, negative keyword lists must be built per language. An English list does nothing for German or Spanish searches, and words that are harmless in one language can carry unwanted meanings in another. Typical candidates in every language: jobs and careers, free, training or courses, used products, and competitor or unrelated brand names. This keeps costs per click focused on searches that can actually convert.