Google Ads Negative Keywords List: Result-Killing Terms to Exclude

The silent killer of Google Ads performance isn't your ad copy, and it isn't your landing page. It is the steady, invisible drip of budget wasted on queries that will never, ever convert. We see it in almost every audit: 20% to 40% of the monthly budget incinerated on terms like "free," "career," "login," or "definition."

For a business spending $50,000 per month, that is $10,000 to $20,000 wasted. Over a year, you are literally paying Google a quarter-million dollars for traffic that has zero intent to buy.

This guide goes beyond the basic advice of "add negatives." We are going to implement a Negative Keyword Defense Architecture. We will cover the specific lists you need to apply today, the technical implementation of negative keyword lists at the MCC level, and the advanced strategy of "Negative Sculpting" to funnel traffic to the correct ad groups.

If you are not actively managing your negative keywords with the same rigor as your positive ones, you are not managing an account; you are donating to Google’s bottom line.

The Financial Reality of Wasted Spend

Before we dive into the lists, let's quantify the damage. Most advertisers look at their CPA (Cost Per Acquisition) and think, "I'm okay." But that blended CPA hides the cancer within the account.

Consider this formula for Negative Efficiency Gap:

Negative Efficiency Gap = (Spend on 0-Conversion Search Terms / Total Spend) × 100

If your Negative Efficiency Gap is >15%, your account is bleeding.

Let’s say you have a Target CPA of $100.

• Scenario A (Current): You spend $10,000. You get 100 conversions. CPA = $100.
• Scenario B (Optimized): You find that $2,000 was spent on terms containing "jobs" or "salary." You exclude them. You still spend $10,000, but now all of it goes to high-intent terms. Even if those new terms are slightly more expensive, your conversion rate on them is 3x higher.
• Result: You might get 130 conversions for the same $10,000. CPA drops to $76.

You didn't change your bid. You didn't write new ads. You simply stopped paying for garbage.

Theory: How Negative Keywords Actually Work (It’s Not What You Think)

Many advanced advertisers misunderstand negative keyword match types. They assume they work like positive match types. They do not.

The "Close Variant" Trap

Positive keywords have "close variants." If you bid on "red shoes" (exact match), Google will show you for "shoes red" or "red sneakers."

Negative keywords do NOT have close variants.

If you add free as a negative keyword:

• It blocks "freecrm software"
• It BLOCKS "free crm"

But if you add shoes as a negative keyword:

• It blocks "red shoes"
• It does NOT block "shoe" (singular vs plural).
• It does NOT block "boot" (synonym).
• It does NOT block "shoess" (misspelling).

Crucial Rule: You must include plurals, misspellings, and synonyms in your negative lists. You cannot rely on Google to be smart here. In fact, Google’s documentation explicitly states this limitation (https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/2453972).

The Match Type Hierarchy for Negatives

1. Negative Broad Match: The default. Blocks the query if all the words are present, in any order.

   • Negative: running shoes
   • Blocks: "running shoes", "shoes running", "blue running shoes"
   • Allows: "running blue shoe" (singular "shoe")
   • Danger: It’s safer than you think, but can still over-block if you aren't careful with long-tail phrases.

2. Negative Phrase Match: Use quote marks "running shoes". Blocks the query only if the words appear in that exact order.

   • Negative: "running shoes"
   • Blocks: "best running shoes", "running shoes sale"
   • Allows: "running blue shoes", "shoes for running"
   • Use Case: This is the most common match type for exclusion lists. It prevents blocking disjointed queries while killing specific concepts.

3. Negative Exact Match: Use brackets [running shoes]. Blocks only that exact query, nothing else.

   • Negative: [running shoes]
   • Blocks: "running shoes"
   • Allows: "best running shoes", "blue running shoes"
   • Use Case: Almost useless for result-killing. Only use this for very specific sculpting where you want to block a term in one ad group but allow it in another (we will discuss Sculpting later).

Framework: The Negative Keyword Defense Matrix

To systematically protect your account, we use the Negative Keyword Defense Matrix. You should categorize every negative keyword into one of these three tiers.

| Tier | Description | Application Level | Update Frequency | | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | | Tier 1: Universal Toxics | Words that strictly contradict your business model (e.g., "free," "job," "porn"). | Account/MCC List | Quarterly | | Tier 2: Competitors | Names of competitors you explicitly do NOT want to bid on. | Account List | Monthly | | Tier 3: Tactical/Sculpting | Low-performing terms specific to a campaign or ad group. | Campaign/Ad Group | Weekly |

By organizing limits this way, you avoid the messy "Campaign level negative clutter" that makes accounts unmanageable.

Execution: Building Your Universal Exclusion Lists

Do not manually add these one by one to every campaign. We are going to build Shared Negative Keyword Lists.

Step 1: Create the "Universal - Non-Intent" List

This list contains words that imply the user is looking for information, not a solution.

1. Go to Tools and Settings → Shared Library → Exclusion Lists.
2. Click the + button.
3. Name it Universal - Global Exclusions.
4. Add these categories (expand strictly with synonyms):

The "Free Seeker" Cluster:

• free
• torrent
• download
• crack
• hacked
• serial key
• generator

The "Information Seeker" Cluster:

• definition
• meaning
• what is
• example of
• diagram
• map
• wiki
• book
• pdf
• whitepaper (unless you are selling B2B leads)
• tutorial
• how to (be careful here, "how to fix X" might be high intent)

The "Employment" Cluster:

• job
• jobs
• career
• careers
• salary
• resume
• internship
• training
• learn to
• course
• school
• university

Step 2: Apply to All Campaigns

Once created, select the list and click Apply to campaigns. Select All Campaigns. Now, every time you launch a new campaign, you just check this box. You have instantly inoculated your new campaign against 80% of bad traffic.

For more details on setting up shared lists, refer to Google's official guide (https://support.google.com/google-ads/answer/10567104).

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Part 5: The "Copy-Paste" Industry Negative Lists

Universal lists are great, but every industry has its own "Toxic Vocabulary". Here are the specific lists we apply for our clients.

1. The B2B SaaS "Consumer" List

If you sell Enterprise Software, you must block the "Home User".

• home
• personal
• desktop (often implies a single-user license vs cloud)
• windows (implies looking for an app, not a platform)
• mac
• ios
• android
• app (unless you have a mobile app)
• free trial (Debatable: do you want free loaders? Segregate them.)

2. The E-commerce "DIY & Repair" List

If you sell new products, block the "Fixers".

• repair
• fix
• parts
• replacement
• broken
• second hand
• used
• ebay
• craigslist
• marketplace
• diy
• homemade

3. The Legal / Service "Education" List

If you are a Lawyer, block the "Law Students" and "Pro Bono" seekers.

• laws (plural often implies studying statutes)
• act
• section
• pro bono
• legal aid
• salary (Lawyer salary)
• school
• bar exam
• clinic (Legal clinic = free)

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Part 6: Automating Negatives (Google Ads Scripts)

Manual mining is slow. Smart advertisers use scripts.

1. The "Zero Conversion" N-Gram Script

This script (based on the popular Seer Interactive logic) looks at word stems rather than full queries. If the word "login" appears in 50 different queries that spent $500 total with 0 conversions, the script flags "login".

The Logic:

The script works by: 1) Getting Search Query Report for last 30 days, 2) Tokenizing each query into individual words, 3) Aggregating cost and conversions by word, 4) Flagging any word that spent over $50 with zero conversions.

You can find the full script in the Google Ads Scripts library: search for "N-Gram Analysis Script" or reference the Seer Interactive blog for the original implementation.

• Action: Schedule this to run weekly and email you the list.

2. The "Negative Conflict" Checker

Google's UI warning is buggy. This script checks if your negatives are blocking Exact Match keywords you are bidding on.

• Why? Sometimes you accidentally add [shoes] as a negative in the wrong group.
• Script: Use the official Google "Negative Keyword Conflicts" script from the library. It is 100% reliable.

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This is where the pros separate themselves from the amateurs. Negative Sculpting isn't about blocking bad traffic; it's about forcing good traffic into the right funnel.

The Problem: You have two campaigns:

1. Generic Search: Bidding on "CRM Software"
2. Brand Search: Bidding on "HubSpot CRM"

Google, in its infinite wisdom, might match the search "HubSpot CRM" to your Generic campaign because it has a higher bid or budget, even though your Brand campaign has a much higher Quality Score and cheaper CPC for that term.

The Solution: You must add [hubspot crm] as a Negative Exact Match keyword in the Generic Campaign.

This forces Google to skip the generic campaign and serve the impression from the Brand campaign.

The "Alpha/Beta" Campaign Structure

We often use an Alpha/Beta structure (refer to our Google Ads Account Structure guide) where:

• Beta Campaign: Broad match modifiers + Broad match keywords to fish for new terms.
• Alpha Campaign: Exact match keywords for top performers.

The Sculpting Move: Every time you move a winning keyword from Beta to Alpha, you MUST add it as an Exact Match Negative in the Beta campaign. Why? To stop the Beta campaign from stealing the traffic back. You want the Alpha campaign (with its tailored ad copy and higher bid) to win that auction every time.

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Part 6.5: The Negative Keyword Lifecycle (Maintenance)

Negative keywords are not a set-and-forget tactic. They decay. New slang emerges. New competitors launch.

The Quarterly Audit Checklist:

1. Cleanse the "Conflicting Negatives" Sometimes you add a negative that was correct in Q1, but blocks a new strategy in Q3.

• Example: You excluded "enterprise" because you were small. Now you are moving upmarket.
• Action: Review your Universal List line-by-line twice a year.

2. Review "Search Partners" Performance If you see a massive spike in invalid clicks, it often comes from Search Partners (not Google Search).

• Action: Segment your campaigns by "Network". If Search Partners has CPA > 2x Google Search, turn it off. This acts as a "Site Wide Negative".

3. Merge your "Ad Group" Negatives If you find yourself adding the same negative to 10 different Ad Groups, move it to a Shared List.

• Why? Efficiency. 10,000 negatives scattered across ad groups slows down the Editor and makes management a nightmare. Centralize everything.

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We recently audited a B2B SaaS account spending $60,000/month. They were bidding on broad match terms like project management software.

The Find: Upon digging into the Search Terms Report for the last 90 days, we found top spending queries including:

• "asana login"
• "monday.com login"
• "trello sign in"
• "client portal login"

The client was paying $15 per click for existing users of other software trying to log in. They were also paying for their own users googling "ClientBrand login" and clicking the ad instead of the organic result.

The Fix:

1. We created a Competitors - Login negative list.
2. We added login, signin, sign in, portal, status, support to the Universal Negative list.
3. We added exact match negatives for their own brand name in the Non-Brand campaigns.

The Results (Month over Month):

• Spend: Decreased by $12,400 (The "wasted" budget).
• Conversions: Increased by 15% (Reallocated that $12k to high-intent "buy" terms).
• CPA: Dropped from $450 to $280.

The "Login" cluster alone was costing them nearly $8,000 a month. That is the salary of a junior marketer, burned in a digital fire pit.

Step-by-Step: Conducting a Reactive "Search Query Mining" Session

You cannot predict every negative keyword. You must mine them. Here is the workflow we use weekly.

1. Navigate to Search Terms: Go to Keywords → Search Terms.
2. Filter by Spend and Conversions: Set filter: Cost > $0 and Conversions < 1. (We want to find terms that spent money but did nothing).
3. Sort by Impressions: Look for high-volume terms that are irrelevant.
4. The "Root Word" technique:
   • Don't just exclude the full query "free project management software for students".
   • identifying the root cause word. Is it "free"? Is it "students"?
   • If you standardise on "students," add students to your Universal Dictionary.
5. Bulk Exclude: Select the terms, add as Negative, and choose "Negative Keyword List" → "Universal Global Exclusions" (if it applies to all) or "Campaign" (if strictly local).

Pro Tip: Look for "near me" queries if you are a national/digital business. Add near me, local, locations, hours, store to your negatives.

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Part 7: Advanced Regex Patterns for Negative Discovery

You can use Regular Expressions (Regex) in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) or Google Ads Search Terms filter to find toxic patterns instantly.

1. The "Cheap" Pattern Finds any query containing price-sensitive modifiers.

• \b(free|cheap|discount|code|promo|crack|hack)\b

2. The "Question" Pattern (Non-Commercial) Finds users asking for definitions vs buying.

• \b(what|how|why|definition|meaning|wiki|pdf)\b
• Strategy: If you are running a "Demo Request" campaign, exclude these.

3. The "Alpha-Numeric" Garbage Finds queries that are just product codes or serial numbers (often implies support/parts lookup).

• Pattern: [0-9] repeated 3+ times (Matches any string with 3+ consecutive numbers).

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Part 8: Negative Keywords in Performance Max (PMax)

PMax is notorious for ignoring negatives. But you can force it.

The "Account Level" Negative List: PMax respects the Account Level Negative Keyword List.

• Go to Account Settings → Negative Keywords.
• Add your "Universal List" here.
• Result: PMax will NEVER serve on "free" or "job" queries.

The "Brand Exclusion" List: PMax loves to bid on your brand name because it converts easily.

• Go to Campaign Settings → Brand Exclusions.
• Add your own brand.
• Result: Force PMax to hunt for new customers (incremental lift) rather than cannibalising your existing traffic.

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Part 9: The "Competitor" Negative Strategy

Should you add competitors as negatives?

Scenario A: You have a small budget.

• Yes. Add every competitor name as a negative. Competitor clicks are expensive ($15+) and convert at a lower rate (5%). If you have limited funds, spend it on people looking for your solution category, not your rival.

Scenario B: You have a large budget.

• No. But segregate them. Create a dedicated "Competitor Campaign". Exclude competitor names from your "Generic" campaign. This keeps your generic CPC cheat and your competitor CPC high (but isolated).

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Glossary of Key Terms

Negative Efficiency Gap: The percentage of your budget wasted on search terms that have 0% chance of converting (e.g., "free", "jobs").

Negative Board Match: Blocks queries containing all your negative terms in any order. free crm blocks "free crm software" and "crm software free".

Negative Phrase Match: Blocks queries containing your negative terms in the exact order. "free crm" blocks "best free crm" but allows "free online crm".

Negative Sculpting: The practice of adding a keyword as a Negative Exact Match in a "Broad/Generic" campaign to force the impression to trigger in a highly specific "Exact Match" campaign.

Token (N-Gram): A single word within a search query. Analyzing performance by "Token" (e.g. "manual") is more effective than analyzing by full query.

Universal Negative List: A shared list applied to every campaign in the account, containing 100% toxic terms (porn, gambling, employment, free-loaders).

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FAQ: Negative Keywords

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Pitfalls to Avoid

1. The "Broad Match Negative" Overkill

If you add shoes as a broad match negative, you block "red shoes." But if you add running shoes as a broad match negative, you block "shoes for running." Be very careful with single-word broad negatives. They are nuclear weapons. Usually, you want Phase Match "word" for single terms to be safe, though Google treats single-word broad and phrase similarly. The danged comes with two words.

• Negative Broad: red shoes -> Blocks "red running shoes"
• Negative Phrase: "red shoes" -> Blocks "red shoes", DOES NOT block "red running shoes" (middle word).

We generally recommend Phrase Match for your negative lists to maintain control (refer to Keyword Research 2024 for more on match type nuances).

2. Conflicting Negatives

Google Ads will usually warn you if a negative keyword blocks a positive keyword. But it won't warn you if a negative keyword blocks a close variant of a positive keyword that was driving sales. Check: Tools → Troubleshooter → Negative Keyword Conflicts script (or use the UI notification) regularly.

3. Forgetting the "Search Partner" Network

Search Partners (Ask.com, etc.) often bring in very low-quality traffic. If you see high impressions and low CTR/Zero conversions from "Search Partners" segment, you might want to exclude them entirely rather than trying to play whack-a-mole with negative keywords, as you often cannot see the specific query from partners.

Summary

Negative keywords are the firewall of your Google Ads account. They protect your budget from the infinite ocean of irrelevant human curiosity.

Your implementation checklist:

1. Calculate your Negative Efficiency Gap (Wasted Spend / Total Spend).
2. Create your Universal Exclusion Lists (Tier 1) today.
3. Implement the "Employment" and "Free Seeker" clusters immediately.
4. Schedule a weekly Search Term Mining session (Tier 3 defense).
5. Use Negative Sculpting if you are running Alpha/Beta or Brand/Non-Brand structures.

Every dollar you save from a negative keyword is a dollar that can be reinvested into a keyword that actually converts. Stop renting placement for people looking for "free PDFs" and start owning the auction for "enterprise software."