Add negative keywords to campaigns

By adding negative keywords to your account or campaigns, you can avoid targeting content that contains those terms. By using negative keywords with other exclusions or content targeting methods, your ads will target any of the selected content in your ad group and help you reach a broader audience.

This article shows you how to add negative keywords at the account and campaign level. You can also learn more about how to edit, remove, or download negative keywords.

Before you begin

If you’re new to negative keywords, start by learning more About negative keywords.

Keep in mind

Negative keywords aren't as precise on the Display Network as they are on the Search Network. Your ad may still occasionally appear on pages containing these terms. For Display ads, a maximum of 5,000 negative keywords is considered. Site category options and content exclusions are the best ways to avoid targeting unrelated sites or videos.

For Display and Video campaigns, all negative keywords will be considered broad matches.

Add negative keywords to ad groups, campaigns, and negative keyword lists

  1. Choose whether to add negative keywords to all campaigns or a specific campaign, then select the specific campaign or ad group.
    • To edit negative keywords for all campaigns, click Edit exclusions.
    • To edit negative keywords for a specific campaign, click the arrow next to “Show table”, select the campaign you want to edit, then click Edit exclusions.
  2. Add your keywords, one per line. Make sure that your negative keywords don't overlap with your regular keywords, because this will cause your ad not to show.
    • Note: If you’re adding negative keywords to a search campaign, you can choose a match type by using the appropriate symbols. For Display and Video campaigns, all negative keywords will be added as broad match, and you won't be able to change the match type.
  3. If you’re adding your negative keywords to a campaign, you have the option to save the keywords to a new or existing negative keyword list and apply that list to the campaign. Check Save to new or existing list, then enter a name for your new list, or select an existing list.
  4. Click Done.
Note: For Performance Max, you can add account-level negative keywords.

Use an existing negative keyword list

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, click the Campaigns icon Campaigns Icon.
  2. Click the Audiences, keywords, and content dropdown in the section menu.
  3. Click Search keywords.
  4. Go to the “Negative search keywords” tab and click the plus button .
  5. Choose the Use negative keyword list option and select the campaign that you’d like to apply negative keyword lists to.
  6. On the table below, check the boxes of the negative keyword lists you’d like to use.
  7. Click Save.

Add or remove negative keywords lists from multiple campaigns

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, click the Tools icon Tools Icon.
  2. Click the Shared library dropdown in the section menu.
  3. Click Exclusion lists and go to the “Negative keyword lists” tab.
  4. To add a negative keyword list to multiple campaigns:
    1. Select the negative keyword list you’d like to add.
    2. Click Apply to campaigns.
    3. Check the boxes of the campaigns that you’d like to apply the list to.
    4. Click Done.
  5. To remove a negative keyword list from multiple campaigns:
    1. Select the negative keyword list you’d like to remove.
    2. Check the boxes of the campaigns that you’d like the list to be removed from.
    3. Click Remove list from selected campaigns.

Add negative keywords at the account level

You can add negative keywords at the account level and they will automatically apply to all search and shopping inventory in relevant campaign types. There is a limit of 1,000 negative keywords that can be added at the account-level. Learn more About account-level negative keywords.

Note: Negative keyword lists can't be excluded from Smart Display campaigns and keywords can be excluded manually only from Smart Display campaigns.

Tip

Try excluding sites or categories to limit the visibility of your Display ads.

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