Exclude pages about a specific topic

To help you reach more potential customers, your ads will now show on content that matches any of the topics, placements, or Display/Video/Search keywords you target. For example, if you targeted “bikes” as a topic and “cycling” as a Display/Video/Search keyword, your ads will show on content that matches either.

You’ll also notice contextual targeting simplified into a single page in Google Ads, so you can manage all content targeting types (Topics, Placements, Display/Video keywords, and Exclusions) in a single view. The new page can be found in the “Content” section under Campaigns on the left-side navigation menu.

Just as you can target pages in the Google Display Network about certain subjects, like cars or music, you can also exclude by topic to keep your ads off webpages whose themes aren't relevant to your customers.

This article explains how to exclude topics to not display your ads on specific webpages.

Reasons to exclude topics

• Avoid showing your ads on pages that aren't relevant to your business.
• Filter out subtopics and niche areas that aren't relevant to your business.
• Spend your advertising budget effectively by excluding topics that show a low return.

Example

A travel agency has an ad group that features ads about various types of tours. They decide to target the topic Travel which has lots of relevant sub-topics like Adventure Travel and Regional Parks & Gardens, but exclude subtopics that are less relevant to their offerings like Air Travel.

Instructions

To exclude pages about a specific topic, follow these steps:

Note: The instructions below are part of the new design for the Google Ads user experience. To use the previous design, click the "Appearance" icon, and select Use previous design. If you're using the previous version of Google Ads, review the Quick reference map or use the Search bar in the top navigation panel of Google Ads to find the page you’re searching for.

1. In your Google Ads account, from the Views bar at the top, select Display campaigns.
2. Click the Campaigns icon from the navigation menu at the left.
3. Click the Audiences, keywords, and content drop down in the section menu.
4. Click Content.
5. On the "Content" page, click the Topic Exclusions tab.
6. On the "Topic exclusions" page, select the topics you'd like to exclude by selecting the checkboxes to the left of each one.
7. Click Remove.

You can combine multiple exclusion types and your ads won’t match against any of the content you excluded in your ad group.

Related links

• About negative keywords
• Exclude specific webpages and videos
• Exclude demographic segments
• About content exclusions