Google Ads Negative Keywords: Best Practices + Negative Keyword Lists

By Corey Frankosky · Last Updated August 6, 2026

The best way to optimize a Google Ads search campaign is negative keywords. They block the wasted clicks, the free and DIY searches, the competitor names, and all the junk that Google sends your way when match types run broad. In this guide you will learn how to do negative keyword research, how the negative match types actually work, and how to build negative keyword lists that protect your budget from day one.

1What Negative Keywords Are and Why They Matter

Negative keywords tell Google what not to target. When you add one, your ads stop showing for any search that matches it, so you never pay for that click again. One key to a highly targeted campaign is choosing what not to target, and negatives are how you do it.

This matters more every year. Performance Max runs on Search inventory, and AI Max expands your keywords into broad and ultra broad matches. When those searches come in, the fastest way to clean them up is a broad match negative for a one-word term. You do not want anybody looking up reviews, Reddit, or how-to guides. You want people searching for the exact service you sell.

Think about a hardwood floor installer. If you do not sell the lumber, you need to block searches like hardwood store near me and where to buy hardwood. Those people are shopping for materials, not hiring an installer. Negative keywords are what keep your budget on the people who actually become customers.

Question to Answer:

Do you know which searches are triggering your ads right now that will never turn into a customer?

2Watch: Negative Keyword Research and Best Practices

Before we get into the details, here is the full walkthrough where I go through my actual Google Ads account, mine the search terms report, and build negative keyword lists live. The rest of this post follows the same process step by step.

3How Negative Keyword Match Types Work

Negative keywords use broad match, phrase match, and exact match, but they do not work the same way as positive keywords. The most important difference is that negative keywords do not expand to close variants. If you add the negative broad match keyword running shoes, your ad can still show for running shoe or blue tennis shoes. Google only accounts for casing and some misspellings, not singular and plural forms.

Here is how each negative match type behaves for the keyword running shoes.

Broad match negatives block a search only when every word appears, in any order. Phrase match blocks when your words appear in the same order. Exact match blocks only the exact search with no extra words. For a full breakdown of how targeting works on the positive side, see my Google Ads keyword match types guide.

Question to Answer:

Are you using exact match negatives for one-word junk like PMax, and broad match for multi-word searches you never want to appear for?

4How to Do Negative Keyword Research

Negative keyword research is not complicated. It is your search terms report, reviewed on a schedule. Here is the process I use.

Go to your campaign, open the search terms report, and set the date range to the last 7 to 30 days. Sort by impressions so the searches wasting the most budget rise to the top. Then go right down the list. Google Marketing Live 2026, no. Digital marketing tutorial for beginners, no. Keyword tool, no. You are looking for anything with no buying intent behind it.

When you find junk, decide the match type based on the search. A one-word term like PMax gets an exact match negative, because someone searching PMax Google Ads agency might still be relevant. A clearly bad multi-word search gets a broad match negative so it never appears again in any order. I do this manually at least once a week, and I lean on AI for the high-spend accounts that generate thousands of search terms a month.

If you want the deeper walkthrough on mining that report, I wrote a full tutorial on how to use the search terms report to find negative keywords.

Question to Answer:

Are you reviewing your search terms report at least once a week and sorting by impressions?

5Build Your Negative Keyword List Before You Launch

You do not have to wait for bad search terms to show up. You can block most of them before your campaign ever runs. I have a starter list that I apply to almost every account, and it gets rid of the universal junk right away.

• Free and cheap. free, cheap, discount, bargain, and DIY. These attract people who never intended to pay you.
• Research, not buyers. how to, what is, template, tutorial, and examples. These are informational searches.
• Jobs and careers. jobs, salary, careers, apprenticeship, journeyman, and trade school. These are job seekers, not customers.
• Reviews and reputation. reviews, Reddit, complaints, and scam. These are people comparing, not ready to hire.

You can also build a client-specific starter list in about a minute. Give an AI tool like Claude, ChatGPT, or Gemini your website URL and ask for an initial negative keyword list for your business. For a tree service, the very first thing that shows up is tree removal for seniors, an understandable search, but not one you want to pay for. Just review what the AI gives you before you apply it, because it will sometimes suggest a word you actually target. I run Google Ads management, so I can never let a tool add management to my list. My guide to AI keyword research covers how to prompt these tools well.

Question to Answer:

Do you have a starter negative keyword list ready to apply before your next campaign goes live?

6Account, Campaign, and Ad Group Level Negatives

Where you add a negative keyword matters as much as which one you add. You have three levels to work with, plus shared lists.

1. Account level. Add a term here and it is blocked across your entire account. You can add up to 1,000 negative keywords directly in the admin account settings. This is where the universal junk goes.
2. Campaign level. Use this when a term is bad in one campaign but fine in another. Pricing might be wasteful in a prospecting campaign and high intent in a bottom-of-funnel one.
3. Ad group level. Use this to keep tight ad groups from crossing over. In a commercial pest control ad group, add home as a negative so it does not steal searches meant for your home pest control ad group.

My accounts with long-term clients often have negative keyword lists with 10,000 or more keywords in them. You just keep adding, and you stay consistent.

Question to Answer:

Is each negative keyword sitting at the right level, so it blocks junk without hurting a campaign that needs it?

7Negatives for Performance Max and AI Max

Negative keywords used to be a simple filter. In 2026 they are a control mechanism, because match types have gone broad and intent based. Performance Max serves on Search, and AI Max expands your keywords further, so negatives are how you draw the boundary around what your campaign is allowed to chase.

For Performance Max, use account level negative keywords to keep your ads off search terms that are not suitable for your brand. When I tested a Performance Max campaign targeting tree service marketing, it pulled in a flood of people searching for actual tree services instead. That is the nature of Performance Max, and account level negatives are the fix. My Performance Max guide goes deeper on structuring these campaigns.

The biggest issue today is not the obviously irrelevant search. It is the almost relevant search that looks fine and never converts. Those are the ones you catch by reading intent, not just scanning for junk words.

Question to Answer:

Do you have an account level negative keyword list applied to your Performance Max campaigns?

8Real Negative Keyword Examples by Industry

The best negatives come from understanding the search intent behind what people type. Here are examples from accounts I actually run.

• Auto repair. Block tire shop as an exact match negative if you repair and install tires but do not sell them. The intent behind tire shop is buying tires at a store.
• Tree service. Block tree removal for seniors and any free or low-budget variant. The intent is a job you cannot do profitably.
• Plumbing. Block apprenticeship, journeyman, trade school, and plumbing school. Those are people looking to enter the trade, not hire one.
• Medical practices. Block competitor doctor names and one-word first names like Smith or Matt that show up in your search terms. Run your brand in its own campaign instead.
• Med spa. Keep CoolSculpting and weight loss in separate campaigns and cross-negative them so each one only serves its own intent.

If you would rather have an expert handle this end to end, that is exactly what my Google Ads management services cover.

Question to Answer:

What are the searches specific to your industry that look relevant but never convert?

9Negative Keyword Mistakes to Avoid

Negative keywords protect your budget, but they can also block good traffic if you are careless. Here are the mistakes to watch for.

• Blocking your own money keywords. Adding management as a broad negative when you sell Google Ads management is the classic example. Always review an AI-generated list before you apply it.
• Expecting close variants to be blocked. A negative for running shoes does not block running shoe. If you need to block a singular or plural, add both.
• Using broad match when you mean exact. A broad negative for tire shop can knock out tire truck shop. Use exact match when you only want to block the precise term.
• Ignoring the warning. Google flags when your negatives are blocking positive keywords, in the recommendations tab. That is one of the few genuinely useful things in there, so check it.

If you want to learn the full system behind campaigns like these, that is what I teach inside the Surfside PPC Google Ads Course.

Question to Answer:

Have you checked the recommendations tab to confirm none of your negatives are blocking keywords you want?