Negative keywords: how to stop paying for the wrong clicks in Google Ads

The short answer

Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns, so your ads only show for searches that matter to your customers.¹ The routine is simple: look at the searches that actually triggered your ads, then add the irrelevant ones as negatives.

A simple example

Google's own example is an optometrist who sells eyeglasses. Searches for "wine glasses" can trigger their ad, so they add "wine" as a negative keyword to filter those searches out.¹² The same thing happens in every industry: a few unrelated searches quietly use up budget.

Step 1: find the wasted searches

The search terms report shows the actual searches that triggered your ads on the Google Search Network, which keyword matched each one, and how it performed. In Google Ads you find it under Campaigns, then Insights and reports, then Search terms.² Look for searches that have cost you clicks but are clearly not looking for what you sell.

Step 2: add the right negatives

• If the whole search is irrelevant, add it as a negative keyword.²
• If one word is the problem, such as "free", "jobs" or "course" for a service business, add that word.
• Choose the match type carefully. Google offers broad, phrase and exact match for negatives, and they block different things: broad blocks searches containing all the negative terms in any order, phrase blocks them in the same sequence, and exact blocks only the precise search.¹

Words that often need excluding

These depend on what you sell, so treat them as prompts, not a list to copy:

• Job-seeker words: jobs, careers, salary, internship.
• Learner and DIY words: course, training, how to, template, tutorial.
• Price-hunter words you do not serve: free, cheap, cheapest, if your offer is not that.
• Meanings you do not mean: anything where a word has a different sense in another industry.

Step 3: make it a routine

1. Check the search terms report weekly for the first month, then every two weeks.
2. Add negatives, and note what you added so you can undo a mistake.
3. Use the same report to spot good searches you had not thought of, and give them their own ads or pages.

Be careful not to over-block

A negative can accidentally block good searches. Check a word in context before adding it, and review your negatives from time to time. If your results drop suddenly after adding several, that is the first place to look.

This is one of the first things I check in an ads audit. See how I run ads, or read my guide to setting a Google Ads budget.

References

1. About negative keywords. Google Ads Help. Accessed 5 October 2026.
2. About the search terms report. Google Ads Help. Accessed 5 October 2026.