PPC glossary

Negative keywords

Negative keywords are words or phrases an advertiser adds in Google Ads to stop ads appearing on searches that contain them. They filter out irrelevant or low-value searches, such as ones containing 'free', 'jobs' or a product the business does not sell, so budget goes on searches more likely to produce customers.

Reviewed by Gareth Hoyle, Managing Director
Last reviewed 31 October 2026

How do negative match types work?

Negative keywords have their own match types, and Google says they behave differently from positive keywords. The biggest difference is that negatives do not match close variants. A negative for 'flowers' does not block 'flower', so plurals, singulars and synonyms have to be added separately. Google does account for casing and misspellings.

Negative broad match, the default: blocks searches containing all the negative words, in any order
Negative phrase match: blocks searches containing the words in the same order
Negative exact match: blocks only a search that is exactly those words, with nothing added

Where can negative keywords be added?

They can be added to an ad group, a campaign, a shared list or the whole account. An account-level negative applies to all eligible Search and Shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. Performance Max campaigns accept up to 10,000 negative keywords each, a limit Google raised from 100 in March 2025.

There are limits. Ads may still show when a search is longer than 16 words and the negative term comes after the 16th, and Google warns that too many negatives can stop ads reaching customers.

How to build a negative list

The best source is the search terms report, which shows the searches that actually triggered ads. Reviewing it weekly, and adding a negative for every irrelevant pattern rather than every individual search, keeps the list short and effective.

Example

An independent optician advertising eye tests sees spend on searches for 'wine glasses', 'magnifying glasses' and 'optician jobs near me'. Adding 'wine', 'magnifying' and 'jobs' as negative broad match keywords at campaign level blocks all three patterns, along with future searches that contain those words.