What is Negative Keywords?
Negative keywords are terms you add to a campaign or ad group to prevent your ads from showing on searches that include them. They are the primary control mechanism for eliminating wasted spend on irrelevant queries, and the discipline that makes broader match types safe to run at scale.
What to know in practice
- The search-terms report is the source: sort by cost descending, find high-spend queries with zero conversions, and add them as negatives — a weekly 15-minute habit on most accounts.
- Negative match types matter too: a broad negative 'free' blocks any query containing 'free', while phrase and exact negatives are more surgical.
- Account-level negative lists (shared via Shared Library) keep cumulative exclusions consistent across campaigns; Tier-1 advertisers often run 200+ negatives.
- In Performance Max, campaign-level negative keywords became available in 2024 but are still gated for some accounts — request access from your Google rep if needed.
Common misconception
Negative keywords aren't a one-time setup. The search-terms report surfaces new wasteful queries every week as match types interpret fresh searches. An account whose negative list hasn't grown in months is almost certainly leaking spend.
Related terms
- Keyword Match Types → Paid Media
- Quality Score → Paid Media
- Performance Max → Paid Media