Negative keywords let you exclude search terms from your campaigns and help you focus on only the keywords that matter to your customers. Better targeting can put your ad in front of interested users and increase your return on investment (ROI).
This article explains how negative keywords work and when they might be useful. Learn more about how to Add negative keywords.
How they work
One key to a highly targeted campaign is choosing what not to target.
When selecting negative keywords for search campaigns, look for search terms that are similar to your keywords, but might cater to customers searching for a different product. For example, let's say you're an optometrist who sells eyeglasses. In this case, you may want to add negative keywords for search terms like wine glasses and drinking glasses.
Important
Negative keywords won’t match to close variants or other expansions. For example, if you exclude the negative broad match keyword flowers, ads won’t be eligible to serve when a user searches red flowers, but can serve if a user searches for red flower.If you’re using Google Display Network or Video campaigns, negative keywords can help you avoid targeting unrelated sites or videos, but keep in mind that negative keywords work differently for Google Ads Display and Video campaigns than they do for search campaigns. Depending on the other keywords or targeting methods in your ad group, some places where your ad appears may occasionally contain excluded terms. For Google Ads Display and Video ads, a maximum of 5,000 negative keywords is considered.
Types of negative keywords
Match types for negative keywords help control which search terms you can exclude from your campaigns. For example, you could use exact match to exclude specific search terms, or you could use phrase match to exclude search phrases. However, these negative match types work differently than their positive counterparts. The main difference is that you'll need to add synonyms, singular or plural versions, misspellings, and other close variations if you want to exclude them.
For Google Display Network campaigns, a set of negative keywords will be excluded as an exact topic. Ads won’t show on a page even if the exact keywords or phrase are not on the page explicitly, but the topic of the content is strongly related to the excluded set of negative keywords.
Negative broad match (Google Ads only)
For negative broad match keywords, your ad won't show if the search contains all your negative keyword terms, even if the terms are in a different order. Your ad may still show if the search contains only some of your keyword terms. In Google Ads accounts, this type is the default for your negative keywords. Microsoft Advertising does not support broad match for negative keywords.
Example
Negative broad match keyword: running shoes
| Search | Could an ad show? |
| blue tennis shoes |  |
| running shoe | |
| blue running shoes |  |
| shoes running | |
| running shoes | |
Negative phrase match
For negative phrase match keywords, your ad won't show if the search contains the exact keyword terms in the same order. The search may include additional words, but the ad won't show as long as all the keyword terms are included in the search in the same order. The search may also include additional characters to a word and the ad will show even when the rest of the keyword terms are included in the search in the same order.
Example
Negative phrase match keyword: "running shoes"
| Search | Could an ad show? |
| blue tennis shoes | |
| running shoe | |
| blue running shoes | |
| shoes running | |
| running shoes | |
| bluerunning shoes | |
Negative exact match
For negative exact match keywords, your ad won't show if the search contains the exact keyword terms, in the same order, without extra words. Your ad may still show if the search contains the keyword terms with additional words.
Example
Negative exact match keyword: [running shoes]
| Search | Could an ad show? |
| blue tennis shoes | |
| running shoe | |
| blue running shoes | |
| shoes running | |
| running shoes | |
Symbols in negative keywords
You can use three symbols, ampersands (&), accent marks (á), and asterisks (*) in your negative keywords. Negative keywords with accent marks are considered two different negative keywords, like sidewalk cafe and sidewalk café. Similarly, “socks & shoes” is different than “socks and shoes”.
Here are some of the symbols that our system doesn't recognize:
- Ignored symbols: You can add periods (.) or pluses (+) to your negative keywords, but these symbols will be ignored. That means the keywords Fifth Ave. and Fifth Ave, for example, are considered identical negative keywords.
- Invalid symbols: You'll see an error message if you add negative keywords that contain certain symbols. Some of the symbols that can't be used in your negative keywords are: , ! @ % ^ () = {} ; ~ ` <> ? \ |
- Site and search operators: The "site:" operator will be removed from your negative keywords. That means if you add the negative keyword [site:www.example.com dark chocolate], it’ll be considered the same as [dark chocolate]. Search operators will also be ignored. For example, if you add the search operator "OR" to the negative keyword dark chocolate, like “OR dark chocolate,” the "OR" command will be ignored and your negative keyword will be just dark chocolate.
Keep in mind
- Choose your negative keywords carefully. If you use too many negative keywords, your ads might reach fewer customers.
- Negative keywords do not match to close variants so your ad might still show on searches or pages that contain close variations of your negative keyword terms.
- There’s no negative broad match modifier match type.
- In Google Ads accounts, your ads might still show when someone searches for a phrase that's longer than 10 words, and your negative keyword follows that 10th word. Let's say your negative keyword is discount. Your ad can show when someone searches for "nice clean hotel rooms in Los Angeles close to beach discount" because your negative keyword is the 11th word in the phrase. On the other hand, Google won't show your ad when someone searches for "nice clean hotel rooms in Los Angeles beach views discount" because your negative keyword is the 10th word in the phrase.