Negative keywords — Words you don't want to show for

Words or phrases you add to a campaign so your ads don't show for irrelevant searches.

What it means

Negative keywords tell Google Ads which searches you do not want your ad to appear for. When someone's search contains a negative keyword, your ad stays hidden. This saves your budget for likely buyers.

How it works

You add them to a campaign or ad group, or save them in a negative keyword list shared across campaigns. Like normal keywords, negatives have match types:

Negative broad: blocks searches that contain all your negative words, in any order.
Negative phrase: blocks searches that contain those words in that exact order.
Negative exact: blocks only that exact search.

Unlike normal keywords, negatives don't block close variants, so add plurals and misspellings yourself. The best place to find new negatives is the search terms report, which shows the real searches that triggered your ads.

A simple example

A Kota coaching institute runs ads for "JEE coaching in Kota". After a week, the search terms report shows clicks from searches like "JEE coaching jobs Kota", "free JEE notes pdf" and "JEE coaching fees refund". None of these people want to join a course. The institute adds "jobs", "free", "pdf" and "refund" as negative keywords. If it was paying, say, ₹50 a click for these searches, that money now reaches genuine admission seekers.

Why it matters

Without negatives, broad matching can show your ad for searches only loosely related to your business. Every irrelevant click costs money and drags down your click-through rate and conversion rate. Good negatives improve traffic quality and make campaigns more profitable.

Beginner tips

Check the search terms report weekly for new campaigns, then every few weeks once things settle.
Build a shared list of common negatives such as "jobs", "salary" and "free".
Think before you block: "cheap" may be a bad negative for a budget brand.
Common mistake: adding a negative that also blocks your best searches, such as adding "Kota" to a campaign meant for Kota students.